


Beneath the Stars

by Pearlinprocess



Category: Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 76,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4110163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlinprocess/pseuds/Pearlinprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion fic to "Beyond the Stars". Gaz/Squee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd Casil was no longer a boy. He was only just barely a man, but it had been a long time since he considered himself to be 'innocent'. It had been a long time since he remembered what it felt like to be shocked by the darkness in the world around him.  
There were plenty of traumatic moments in his childhood that could have been responsible for his increasingly disheartening worldview, but it wasn't the demons or the alien abductions, or the horrors of horrors that couldn't even be named that had done it. It was the betrayal of his own parents that broke his childlike soul, when they had locked him away and left him to rot in that asylum cell.  
He'd been confined in that hell for nearly a year, a year of being mocked by the doctors and nurses, poked and prodded with needles, and force-fed medication that he didn't need. The pills made his nightmare visions even worse instead of curing them like the doctors had insisted they would. Todd couldn't even run from them when he was tied up in his straight-jacket. All he could do was shut his eyes tight, but the monsters whispered in his ears even when he tried to sleep, and he never really slept there anyways.  
One day the nurses tied him to a gurney, and they pushed him into a dimly lit room and left him there. The monsters cackled in devilish delight from the shadows that leapt between the flickering lights, 'They're going to take your brain! And then, when you can't speak of it to anyone else, they'll take the rest of your organs too!'  
Terrified and quickly losing hope, Todd shut his eyes and prayed. But not to god - What had he ever done for him anyways? Instead, he prayed to the one person he had ever actually counted on to help him, the last person in that moment that he had any faith left in.  
The Antichrist heeded his prayer as soon as he had finished it, appearing from nowhere in the dingy hospital room. "Hola, amigo. Need some help?"  
Ever since then, Todd had been living with Pepito at his mother and father's house, which he hadn't stepped foot out of since the day he'd arrived. Pepito and his mother always had a meal for him whenever he got hungry. There were books for him to read, and television to watch. He ate, and he read, and he watched. He listened to Pepito talk about his days at school, though Pepito seldom had anything good to say. He found fault with everyone, the jocks and cheerleaders of course, but also the nerds and even the smart kids. They were vapid idiots, or spineless, or too conceited even if they were smart and not-spineless.  
Todd had always wondered what Pepito saw in him when he found fault with so many others, and he began to suspect it was because he depended on him, to protect him from the nightmares, so at first Todd was always eager to agree with him and do whatever he wanted, even if Todd didn't really agree or want to. Pepito had been the one person who could and did protect him when he needed someone more than he ever had, when the people who had legal ownership of him had betrayed him to a fate worse than death. So of course he believed him at first when he told him it wasn't safe for him in the world outside his home and his protection, and though Todd had sincerely agreed at first when he was a child and for a few years after, he didn't really mean it anymore. He got restless, reading about and watching things but never experiencing them. He now only pretended to be content with and grateful for Pepito's protection.  
Deep down, in his heart, he was not, and when he started to become a man, the feelings only became more intense. The restlessness for fresh air and curiousity for new experiences, versus the rage that still seethed about his parents, the need to confront them for all they had done to him and seek justice - These two feelings waged a constant but silent war within him.  
The first year he'd come to live with the Diablo's, Pepito had told him, "It's okay to feel bad about what happened to you, amigo, but time will lessen your pain. You'll forget about it." Todd had believed at first him, but he was wrong. The pain slowly grew and become more unbearably frustrating with every day that passed. He got annoyed with Pepito always asking him if he was okay and what else he might want him to get him, but he didn't want to appear ungrateful, either. So he learned to hide it, asking only for his needs and little things like more books, and art supplies.  
And Pepito of course never blinked twice if Todd drew a picture of some monstrosity or another. It was the nice pictures he drew on rare occasions, those were what Todd actually hid from him. Pictures of cute animals and pretty girls and boys doing normal stuff, like playing sports or driving around or just talking or smiling at each other.  
Once Pepito had found a picture Todd drew of a boy and a girl kissing, and had asked him about it, much to Todd's embarrassment. Pepito was into both sexes, but he admitted that he personally liked the male form more. Todd had blushed and agreed, but to be completely honest, though he could freely admit to himself and Pepito that he liked the male form too, he still preferred females. Like most of his true opinions, though, he kept it to himself - It pleased Pepito more when Todd agreed with him.  
So Todd agreed with him yet again when Pepito reminded him, burning the picture of the sweet young lovers, "It's just a fantasy, Todd. The world outside is cruel. You won't find the kind of happiness you want out there. Trust me."  
"I do trust you, Pepito." He assured him convincingly, but it was in that moment that Todd began to realize with no small amount of shame - He'd come to hate his best friend.  
A couple weeks passed after Todd's 18th birthday, which was celebrated, and he truly was grateful for the normal family experiences like Christmas and Thanksgiving he shared with Pepito's family, that he never had with his own. But it was celebrated like every other birthday before, like a -kid's- birthday, and when he blew out the candles, this time he really had a wish - To get out of this place.  
Then, Pepito went on a 'business' trip with his father one weekend, and Pepito's mother just happened to go volunteering at a Bible Camp at the same time, leaving Todd at home alone except for only one of his guardians, Sargatanas. Alone to his own thoughts, with no one to pretend for.  
'Did they EVER love you at all? Even when you were just a baby?' He silently wondered. It was far from the first time these thoughts had plagued his mind. 'Do they ever regret what they did to their own son? God damn it, I'm sick of being cooped up in his house, it's always so warm, so HOT, it's not enough to just open a stupid fucking window anymore-!'  
The thoughts and feelings haunted him more than the visions. He didn't have them anymore since he'd stopped taking the medication the asylum forced down his throat, except when his dreams turned into nightmares at night, and though that had been rare for a while, it was getting common again. He couldn't stop thinking, even to save his sanity. If he had ever even been sane to begin with. Who even knew if he really had any sanity left anyways? For all he knew, he was probably still at the asylum, drooling on himself and sitting in his own excrement.  
He had to get out of this house, he finally decided. He had to make sure there was a world outside. Pepito had come to trust him so much, he actually left him with Sargatanas instead of Fleurety this week - He must have needed her ferocious battle spirit, and the rest of the demon generals, for something big. Todd knew he would have never gotten past Fleurety, but Sargatanas was not as sharp-minded as her. Todd had turned the TV to the food channel, had gotten the hungry demon in the mood for something complex to make, and then requested he make it. Sargatanas orders from Pepito weren't just to "protect" (guard) Todd, but also to fulfill his every whim and request. So he jumped to obey, and went to the kitchen, where Todd knew he would be for at least two hours. Five minutes in, he slipped out of the house without a second thought.  
Passing the front door, he quietly closed it before darting off into a run. The wind on his face and the sun on his skin was unbelievably refreshing, but it did nothing to relieve the bitterness still stirring in his heart and soul. He could have gone anywhere else in the world, he was free. But there was only one thing his obsessed mind could think to do.  
His house wasn't far, he made it there in less than twenty minutes. He passed by Johnny's old house, but he didn't even look at it. He had a mission, and besides that, he was too freaked out that if he even glanced at the windows, he'd see those freaky eyes staring back at him.  
His father's old car wasn't parked in the driveway, it had been replaced by a much newer and nicer one. Todd almost was angered to think they might have moved away, until he checked the mailbox, and sure enough, his mother and father's names were still on the envelopes.  
Sneaking away into the backyard, Todd caught sight of an open window and began to listen to the voices coming from inside of it. He recognized his father's voice right away, speaking to someone else on a phone.  
"Shit man, yer kidding - Well you gotta tell her to get rid of it, buddy. Trust me on this, having a kid is the worst damn mistake you could ever make. It's not gonna fix your marriage, that -thing- is just going to make you miserable, drive you crazy, eat all your food and cost you all your money. We had this crazy little fucker once, had to throw him in a loony bin. Heard that place caught on fire a few years ago. Hopefully that pain in the ass burned up with all the rest of the human garbage..."  
Well, well. Speak of the devil. Todd's rage burned within his heart, hotter than the fires of hell. He had made -him- miserable? He drove -him- crazy? Just because, god forbid, his growing body needed extra food and other things that cost -money-, was that really all his father had ever seen when he looked at him?  
Todd went around to the other side of the house, where another window led to the kitchen, which had recently been remodeled. His mother was usually in there, but she wasn't at the moment, and Todd used the opportunity to climb into the window. All the appliances in the kitchen were new, including a nice new knife set. Todd pondered over them for a moment, but then he noticed a meat-tenderizing mallet his mother had left out from pounding steaks earlier.  
Todd's lips stretched into a grin as he glanced over the small but numerous spikes at the end of the tool. He took it by the base, feeling the weight of it, and nodded to himself. It was perfect. His father had always been so -blunt- with him, after all, so what better way to take him out?  
His father was sitting in a chair, still on the phone. "I know, she's gonna be all emotional about it, but you'll thank me later... Alright man. See ya." He finally ended the call and put the phone down, and then he reached for the channel changer.  
Todd abrupted stepped out from behind his chair, blocking the television screen with his body. His father gasped and his eyes went wide at the sight of the familiar face, but before he could shout out, Todd swung the meat mallet against the side of the man's temple, knocking him out of his chair and to the ground. He kicked him in the stomach while he was down without shame, and then reached down and whacked him good and hard twice more in the side of his head, leaving bloody imprints from the mallet's spikes on his ear.  
"You son of a bitch," Todd growled, savoring the coward's fearful face, the power rushing over him. "You fucking piece of SHIT-!" He shouted, bringing the hammer down on his forehead once more, and this time his father's eyes shut and he stayed down.  
Todd had been about to hit him again anyways. He was going to bash in his face until his nose and mouth were nothing but a bloody mess, literally. He raised the mallet with both hands and was about to bring it down when-  
"Todd?"  
He stopped, and looked up. His mother had just emerged from the kitchen. She was looking right at him, and her eyes... Todd couldn't remember ever seeing her look at him like that, with clarity and recognition. She actually recognized him, she'd said his name.  
"Oh Todd, my baby, what are you doing...?" Those big brown eyes misted up with clear tears. "Honey, please, put that down... Come to me, sweetheart. You don't know how much I've missed you. I kept hoping every day that you'd get well and come home... Come give your mother a hug..."  
Despite everything he knew about her, he wanted to believe her. Maybe she meant it, maybe she had gotten better too while he was away and remembered him now, maybe his father was the only one who truly hated him, maybe his mother understood why he had to do this and forgave him and really wanted to be his mother again. His mind was feverish with all the desperate hopes, he wanted to believe her, and himself, so badly it ached.  
He dropped the mallet next to his unconscious father, and began to slowly approach his mother. "Mom...?" He murmured weakly, barely breathing. "You were really waiting for me...? Do you, still love me...?" He begged to know.  
"Of course, my baby boy... Come give me a hug now..." She implored, and he couldn't deny himself any longer. He rushed over to give her a hug, finding himself much taller next to her than he last remembered being. He put his hand on his shoulders and rested his head against her bosom, sobbing.  
"Mom...! I just, I just always wanted you to love me, you and dad, but dad, he put me away in that awful place while you were addicted to the pills, whatever he told you was a lie, I'm not crazy-" He rushed to explain to her, soaking her shirt with tears.  
But suddenly, he gasped, his watery eyes going as wide as they could as intense pain literally stabbed through the back of his shoulder. He looked up into his mother's eyes, so sincere and sorry before, were now distorted with a demonic delight. "You crazy fucking idiot!" She barked out an uncontrollable laugh. "Who could love someone as pathetic as you?! Do the world a favor and just DIE-!"  
She was about to bring the knife she had hidden behind her back down on him again, and Todd swore in that instant, she could stab him a thousand times and he would still find a way to tear her apart for her betrayal-But then suddenly, a second knife reached around his mother's neck from behind, and Todd looked up. That broad smile of semi-crooked, yellowed teeth and mop of dirty, disheveled black hair was as terrifying as it had ever been. Todd and his mother both gasped as a line of red started to freely flow down her neck, spurting a bit too, right in Todd's face and mouth.  
The coppery taste of his mother's own blood made him gag, and he doubled over to one side as she toppled over to the other. Todd was bleeding heavily from his own wound, and the wooziness he felt from the blood loss coupled with the surreal situation made him pass out.  
Johnny made quick work finishing off the father in the same way he'd done to the mother, and then went back to where the unconscious Todd laid. He tsked, "You're a lot different than I remember you, Squeegee..." He mumbled to himself in displeasure, tapping his jaw as he pondered, "What am I gonna do with you..."  
Johnny made his decision as quickly as he ever did, then he bent down to pick the younger boy up - Younger, but definitely no longer smaller - And carried him back to his place.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	2. Chapter 2

An Offer He Can't Refuse  
(( Author's Notes: Just a friendly reminder, this story is a rewrite. If it seems different than you remember if you read it last time, that's why. I'm trying to eliminate as much of the filler as possible and just write the plot of the story, because if I don't it'll probably never get written, lol. =P Now, without further ado, here's chapter 2, and please review! =D ))  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd navigated through nightmares the rest of the day and throughout the night. He finally awoke with a gasp just as the rays of the sun were coming over the horizon, finding himself in a dark room. He could barely see anything. The first sensation he rediscovered was smell, and it made him gag. Rot and mildew, it was everywhere.  
As his eyes slowly started to readjust to the lack of light, he began to make out the rest of his surroundings. He was laying down on a smelly old couch, with a filthy blanket on top of him, which he immediate threw off of him as he sat up. Pain shot through his shoulder and down his back as he did this, but he ignored it as best as he could for now. The room was Spartan except for one nearly-empty bookshelf and an old, broken TV, which wouldn't have worked even if the screen wasn't kicked in, since 'rabbit'ears' were long since a thing of the past.  
Then a human-like figure stepped into Todd's peripheral vision, and he made his trademark 'Squee' sound as he turned his heard towards it. Fear shot through his chest, his heart squeezing painfully and then jumping out of control with terror as he realized who it was.  
"Hello Squee." Johnny greeted him, though his tone made it clear he wasn't very glad to see him.  
Todd gulped, resisting the urge to bolt out of the house like a chicken with it's head cut off. "H-Hi Johnny..."  
The homicidal maniac let out a sigh, and then slowly approached the boy. Todd realized he had a can in his hands just before the older man politely offered him, "Beans?"  
Despite how hungry he was, Todd declined, though just as politely, so as not to be a rude guest to his terrifying host. "No thanks, Johnny. I feel kind of sick right now..." Which wasn't actually a lie. He should have been freezing, but instead he was burning up, and his stomach, although empty, didn't feel up to digesting anything at the moment. Especially not a can of beans that was past it's expiration date by three years.  
Johnny nodded in understanding. "Yeah, you're gonna have some flu-like symptoms for a couple days until that stab wound heals. Which reminds me," His voice became stern and scary again. "What was going on over there, anyways? You were always such a nice Squeegee. I mean, I trust you must have some good reason. That's why I went ahead and finished the job for you. That trick your mom pulled on you was really mean, and your dad was always an asshole, so I figured they deserved it... But why did you even go back there? I hadn't seen you in years, I figured you moved somewhere else."  
The information settled on Todd like a ton of bricks, and it felt like a second ton came crashing down on him as he realized what he'd done, what he'd tried to do. Tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. They weren't for the death of his parents, though. They were for himself, for the parents he'd never even had, and the hell those people had made him endure. It was a fitting end for them that they were now rotting in and stinking up the house that had always been more important to them than their own son.  
Johnny silently sat by him as he cried, not interrupting him, not touching him, just letting him get it out of his system. Crying people usually made him uncomfortable, and therefore angry. But Todd was different. The kid always had a tough life, and it looked like it was going to get worse before it got any better.  
Finally Todd managed to choke out, "Th-They l-locked me away! In a crazy house, they t-told them I was crazy! It was, horrible..." He sniffled, stubbornly rubbing away his tears with the back of his hand, even though they still kept coming. "The doctors, they... They burned Shmee..." He admitted, because strangely, the monster next to him reminded him of his old friend, whom the doctors had proclaimed was 'an emotional crutch', that was only impeding Todd's recovery. That was when things had really gotten unbearable, alone without Shmee's voice to cancel out the whispers of his demons.  
Johnny couldn't say he was sorry to hear the lying bastard teddy was gone, but he felt sorry for Todd, who had always relied on the bear to ease his terribly stressful life. "That sucks. I'm sorry you had to go through all that, Squee." He replied sincerely, then added, "Guess they really did deserve it, then. But I never thought you-"  
Todd interrupted him quickly, "I never thought I would, either... I don't think I was feeling well even before I got stabbed..." He mentioned, suddenly realizing that despite all the pain he was still in, his head felt clearer than it had in years. He actually felt better than not about the death of his parents, which made him feel guilty for a moment, but only a moment. Johnny was right - They really had deserved it. Still, he was awfully glad he hadn't actually done it himself. It suddenly seemed like such a terrible thing to really DO, he'd really been behaving like a monster. He vowed not to let himself become like that again. "Maybe I really am crazy..." He mused, mostly to himself.  
"Pft. Big deal." Johnny rolled his eyes and crossed his legs as he leaned back against the couch. "Everyone's crazy. It's not a matter of IF you're crazy, it's how crazy and what kind of crazy you are." He pointed out. "You're actually probably the sanest person I know." Which wasn't saying much, but Todd decided to just take the compliment.  
"Thanks, Johnny..." But worry was still etched on his features, so Johnny asked him what was the matter. "It's just... I'm not sure what I'm going to do now..." Todd confessed miserably. "I wanted so badly to be free, but now that I am, I don't know what to do with this freedom. I guess I didn't really think it through. I don't have anywhere to go, not a penny to my name, no one who cares..."  
"Hey," Johnny sounded a little wounded. "I care about you, Squeegee. At least, I think I do. I've never done much caring so it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure I care about you. And if you want, you can stay here!" He offered with a big, scary grin.  
Todd's eyes went wide and he immediately regretted sharing his worries with the maniac. Now he had to find a way to put this delicately. "Th-That's really nice of you to offer, Johnny, BUT, I really don't think it would work. No offense." He added quickly, "But I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me or anyone else as a roommate, I'd probably start to bug you after a while..." And Todd did NOT want to run the risk of bugging Johnny too much.  
"You're probably right!" Johnny agreed, his grin never faltering. "But that's what's so perfect - I don't even live here anymore!" Todd raised an eyebrow at him, so the homicidal maniac explained, "I have a cabin in the woods a couple hours from here, that's where I've been spending most of my time for the past seven years. It's peaceful out there, no people to annoy me. I just come back here to get supplies and check on the house every once in a while. So I wouldn't be around for us to bug each other, except for just two or three times a year. That wouldn't be so bad, right? And it would actually be nice to have someone look after the place while I'm gone, you know, to make sure hobos aren't sneaking in."  
Todd had to admit it was almost a tempting offer now. Beggars couldn't be choosers, after all, and the only other choices he had was to be homeless or go back to Pepito, which wasn't even an option. He sort of felt bad about just leaving his friend behind, but he couldn't go back until he'd managed to achieve some independence for himself, otherwise Pepito would insist he come back. But he still had plenty of other concerns about Johnny's offer.  
"That really is nice of you Johnny, but..." He knew what he was about to say was going to sound crazy, but Johnny had never been the type to judge people for being insane. Just pretty much everything else. "Well, the spirits of the people you killed have been haunting my dreams all night. I think they're mad about their bodies still just sitting around here after all these years. And, well, rotting bodies kind of presents a sanitation hazard..." Although after seven years, a great deal of those bodies were nothing but skeletons by now.  
"Oh yeeeah..." Johnny mused, sucking on a spoonful of beans for a moment as he thought. "Well, we could clean the place up? I probably should have done that a while ago, but I'm hardly ever here anymore, and I kind of never cared before, so..." He shrugged. "It will be a chore, but I'm willing to do it if you are? It's a pretty big job, but between the two of us and a few dozen gallons of bleach, I think we can make this place livable for you. What do you say?"  
Todd was still hesitant, but he knew he was backed into a corner here. Johnny would probably get offended if he continued to try and turn down his generous offer, and Todd really didn't have much of a choice. The younger man figured, 'Well, maybe I can make it work just as long as I need to, and move somewhere else once I've made enough money...'  
So finally he nodded. "Well, if you're really sure it's okay with you...?"  
Johnny emptied the last spoonful of beans into his mouth and then tossed the can across the room without shame. "Sure, how hard could it be to clean a house!"  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
When Pepito got back home later that weekend, he found Sargatanas with an enormous turkey dinner set at the table, with all the fixin's. And for some weird reason, he had a blow-up doll at the table, which had once been blonde but he'd taken a black marker to it. Pepito figured it was some kind of joke and at first asked innocently, "Where's Todd?" As in, where in the house is Todd, since he didn't expect him to be anywhere else.  
Sargatanas sweated, "...Uhhm... T-T-Todd is r-right here of course, m-my lord..." He replied shakily, gesturing towards the stupid-ass doll.  
Pepito's eyes went wide and grabbed his minion's face, burning his handprint across his flesh with hellish fury, "WHERE THE HELL IS TODD!?"  
Sargatanas screamed, "I'M SORRY MY LORD! I LOOKED ALL OVER BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE HE WENT, I SWEAR I'VE BEEN LOOKING-!"  
Still grabbing his face, Pepito dragged him towards the front door and hurled him to the street. Then with a ferocious growl, he stepped out of the house himself. He could only blame Sargatanas so much, he had trusted Todd just as much as Pepito had foolishly done. Pepito's dark heart hurt much more than he could possibly make the other demon feel, although he was nowhere near done with him yet, he was hurt much more by Todd's betrayal.  
But he at least had a good idea of where he'd be, and he rushed to get there. He, the Antichrist, actually even prayed, begged all the powers that be, to please let Todd still be himself when he found him...  
He kicked in the door when he got to Todd's parent's home, proceeded into the living room... And stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the bloodied bodies.  
All those years... All that trust. For nothing. It was clear who the only culprit could be, the only person with any motive for the 'crime'. Enraged, Pepito kicked the father's corpse and then spit on it for good measure before searching the rest of the house. Finding it empty, he stomped out of the house with a deep scowl.  
Then he looked at the house directly to the left. The Todd he thought he knew would have never gone near it, but if he'd lost his mind, who knows, it might be the first place he'd go. So the demon stomped over and let himself in, not blowing the door off it's flimsy hinges only out of respect for what he knew it was and what had happened there. This place almost even gave him, the prince of darkness, the heebie-jeebies.  
But Todd wasn't there, and he indeed searched the whole place, which took him a good hour, and then another twenty minutes to run back up all those stairs, glad to be out in the fresh air himself when he was done.  
He addressed his generals outside of the 'house'. "If you find Todd, notify me at once. Detain him, but do not kill him unless you must. If he has gone mad and attacks you, kill him only if you must, and do it as painlessly as possible. But beware, if one of his kind kill you, you can die for good. I won't be able to revive you." Pepito wasn't actually afraid of the chance that the strongest demons in hell could actually be killed by Todd, but who knew what his old friend might be capable of now. As much as he still wanted to help his best friend, even despite his betrayal, he realized the only thing he could do now was give him as merciful death as he could manage. He knew Todd wouldn't want to live in the nightmare he was now trapped in.  
In a new black car, from behind dark-tinted windows, Senior Diablo watched his son down the street. He regretted nothing, but still, it was hard as a father to watch his son be in so much pain, and over a human no less. He really wanted to tear the mortal apart himself, he had ever since Pepito had brought the miserable little urchin into their home.  
But the devil well knew, this was the only matter on Earth that he could not trespass on. As much as he resented it, he could only watch and see how all of this panned out...  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	3. Chapter 3

The Candidacy of Sacrificed Souls  
(( A.N. Hey guys, a slight change was made to the end of the last chapter, just to letcha know. Hope you like this chapter, and if so you might also like it's sister fic, "Beyond the Stars". PLEASE review! ^^ ))  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd had spent the weekend healing, and then he and Johnny had left to go buy cleaning supplies, pretty much right before Pepito had arrived. By the time they got back, Pepito had left, and no one was any the wiser.  
They had a whole cart full of bleach, mops, buckets, scrub-brushes, a rented carpet cleaner, and various other cleaning supplies, which Johnny had paid for with a stash of stolen cash he had in his house, the odds and ends that had once belonged to his unfortunate victims.  
They worked all day, and by the time it got dark, the top level room actually looked pretty good. Most of the old bloodstains had been scrubbed away, the trash had been tossed - It was far from the picture of a perfect home, but it was a refreshingly noticeable improvement. Todd removed his face mask and breathed in the new bleachy-clean smell appreciatively.  
"What do you think, Johnny?" He asked, smiling over at his old neighbor. "Not bad for the first day! You said you had a few basement levels underneath though, right? How many exactly are there?" He was trying to figure out if they'd need any extra bleach for the job.  
"Hmm..." Johnny took far too long thinking about the question for Todd's comfort, before finally answering, "I miiight be wrong, but I wanna say there's at least forty-five, maybe fifty levels underneath..." He guessed nonchalantly.  
Todd's eyes bugged out and he sputtered, "F-FIFTY?!" He couldn't be serious!  
"Yeah, this place is definitely bigger on the inside..." Johnny 'joked'.  
Todd sighed, trying to wrap his head around this place. "And definitely a bigger job than I imagined..."  
Johnny raised an eyebrow, "What, you really wanna clean the WHOLE thing?" He asked incredulously.  
"Well, yeah...?" Todd replied as softly as he could. "I just really don't think I can rest easily here unless we do..."  
At first Johnny looked annoyed, which scared Todd. He was worried he was being too much of an inconvenience and that Johnny might be thinking he was pushing it. Todd wasn't sure how to handle this man or what to think of him - He'd saved him before too, from that disgusting pervert he'd foolishly accepted 'help' from that one time when he was still very little and naive. He was very grateful to Johnny for that, but he'd also never cared to spare him the dark and dirty details of the world that most people thought children should be blissfully unaware of. As traumatizing as it was, though, he'd still done it to help the hapless boy. He'd actually never done anything to Todd that wasn't meant to help him. So, although he certainly didn't trust Johnny, he felt the need to at least give him the benefit of a doubt.  
"Look," Todd quickly amended, "If it's too much of a hassle for you, I'd understand. I'll do it all myself, as long as it's okay with you. If not, that's okay too, I can just find someplace else-"  
Johnny rolled his eyes and sighed out a growl, "No, no, no - I get it, this place is WAY overdue for a Spring Cleaning. I'll help you - I made the mess, after all. It's just, two things - One, exactly HOW clean do you want this place? Coz there's, like, several tunnel-rooms and one big tunnel at the bottom that could just be sealed off..."  
Todd sighed, recalling his disturbing dreams and what the ghosts had told him, "They need to be immersed in earth or burned..."  
Johnny nodded, not thinking any of this sounded crazy at all. "Okay, that's reasonable. So two, lets really focus on getting this done as quickly as we can. I don't like being in populated areas too long. I might get tempted to add another body to this place if I stay too long..." They'd nearly had an encounter earlier that day when they went to buy the cleaning supplies, over a guy who kept giving Nny a 'funny look', but Todd had quickly evaded the situation by pulling Johnny to a different aisle.  
Part of Todd had been hoping Johnny would be against it and he could use the excuse to go. Being homeless would suck but this was a turning out to be a pretty big inconvenience too. But at the same time, he was actually looking forward to the task ahead, too. Todd's parents had never let him make messes when he was a child, and while staying with Pepito, Todd had always been considerate and offered to help his mother with chores every time they needed to be done. He wasn't a neat-freak, but he couldn't stand to see such an outstanding amount of filth left to fester, either.  
"Yeah, I definitely don't want that to happen." Todd agreed, hoping his wouldn't be the body Johnny was tempted to add. "So, how about this - Since you don't like sleeping anyways, how about you clear out bodies during the night, and I'll sanitize the rooms during the day?" He really hoped that seemed fair, since Johnny was the one who put those bodies there to begin with. "That way you're less likely to run into people."  
"Yeah, I guess that's fair." Johnny agreed. "Those bodies should be a lot lighter now than they were, so I should be able to move them by myself..."  
Todd sighed with relief. Bleaching away the blood left behind was one thing, but he really hadn't wanted to touch the actual bodies or their bones. Johnny loaded up the trunk his clunker of a car with as many bones as he could fit, and then he drove them out to a bog about thirty minutes outside of the city limits and dumped them.  
Todd had tried to sleep while he was gone, but ghostly nightmares of screaming souls plagued him every time he tried to shut his eyes. When Johnny got back, despite his reservations, he ended up helping him clear the bodies out after all. Despite how creepy and just plain weird it was, it gave Todd a sense of purpose. Most of these people had probably been total assholes, but they still deserved to rot in peace, and he wanted it done as quickly as he could so he could rest peacefully too.  
By flashlight alone, they managed to clear out the first seven levels that night, and by morning Todd was so exhausted, he managed to sleep dreamlessly for almost two hours before he was awoken by another nightmare. He choked down a quick and simple breakfast of instant oatmeal, made with bottled water, since the running water had been turned off years ago, and then set to his task.  
The lower levels not only went deeper, though, they got bigger too, with more and more rooms waiting to be purged. The first few levels only had a few rooms each, but once they'd gotten down a dozen levels, the corridors began getting longer, and it was creepier to try and navigate them with only a flashlight. Thankfully the ghosts didn't bother them while they were working, it was creepy enough to try and work with skeletons and partially rotted corpses. He kept expecting one of them to suddenly scream or grab at him. But the spirits probably wanted the place cleaned out just as much as Todd did, so they left him undisturbed as long as he was working on it.  
On the fifth day, Todd found a few rooms on the thirty-eighth floor that, unlike most of the other rooms so far, contained neither long-dead victims or a collection of weapons or torture devices. Instead, every inch of the walls were written or drawn on. As a fellow artist Todd couldn't help but take some time to admire the work. Some walls had entire murals on them of various monstrous creatures, disturbing but in great detail.  
But then other walls had a collection of ridiculous scribbles and doodles that no one would think was made by the same person as the intricate murals. Todd read a few lines of what was written, and then stopped. It hurt his brain trying to make heads or tails of the nonsense.  
Johnny appeared behind him a moment later, "Oh hey... I forgot about these rooms..." He mentioned, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "Man I hate seeing my old work..."  
"Why? These are really good!" Todd encouraged him. "Much better than I can do. I'm not bad at drawing, but I'm only so-so. My writing is much better." He added.  
"Well, thanks, I guess..." Johnny sighed. "But it's not just the pictures, it's the memories..."  
Todd frowned. "Sorry..." He replied awkwardly, wanted to empathize, but he couldn't imagine what kind of memories were associated with the fearsome images, and he frankly didn't want to.  
"I'd prefer to get rid of them too, if you wouldn't mind." Johnny added, suddenly sounding rather serious.  
"Of course." Todd nodded, and he didn't bring it up again until they got to the room at the end of the hall, where a mural unlike any of the others was displayed. It was of a man, brown-haired and wearing glasses, a normal looking man, except, for some reason, Johnny had decided to give him black angel wings. They stretched out freely even though his bleeding, lacerated body was chained.  
"Who is he?" The younger man breathed, needing to know.  
"A regret." Johnny answered grumpily.  
Todd raised an eyebrow, curiosity getting the better of him. "He had to be more than that, for you to draw him like that..."  
At first it looked like Johnny was going to be stubborn and not answer, and Todd was going to let him. But then the older male sighed and shrugged, "He was a good man. He wasn't an asshole, he didn't deserve what I did to him. But I did it anyways. I felt like I had to, at the time, for my own crazy reasons... I regretted it, so, I drew this." Johnny's lip curled up in distaste at the sentiment.  
"Can I keep it, Johnny? Please?" Todd suddenly requested, the first he'd made of the homicidal maniac. "I like this one. And, I think you should, for him. He deserves to be remembered. Also, I had some Catholic family members, and they believed in having a saint to protect the house. He can be the saint of this house." Lord knows it needed one. "Did you know his name?"  
"...Edgar. Vargas." Johnny replied slowly. Edgar had been religious, he remembered, so he probably wouldn't mind. "And yeah, I guess it's okay... I won't be around to be bothered by it, after all..."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
On the sixth day, while Todd and Johnny went out for more gallons of bleach and water, they stopped first at Johnny's insistence at a Taco Smell for lunch. Apparently he ate a lot of cold canned food and charred squirrel meat in the woods, and was craving something different.  
Todd let Johnny eat one of the two tacos he'd bought for himself and ate one of his own before mentioning, "Thanks for lunch, Johnny. And for everything else..."  
Johnny raised an eyebrow at him, "Yeah, no problem. Least I could do. You're doing more than your fair share too."  
Todd shrugged, "Least I could do. But really... You've always been especially kind to me, when obviously, most other people aren't to your liking... I'm really grateful for your help, of course, I guess I just always wondered why? I've encountered a lot of scary things, Johnny, but you were one of the scariest. I think it was actually because you looked so much like me, just older... I used to be worried when I was a kid that you'd do to me what you did to them, but, now... Well you wouldn't be doing all this for me if you wanted to hurt me... Right? I just can't help but wonder why."  
Johnny sighed and rolled his eyes - Sentimental musings weren't his thing. "I guess for the same reason, but reverse... You always kinda reminded me of a younger me. It's not just because you look a lot like me, either. All the stuff you went through, I... Well, I actually can't remember a lot of my childhood anymore, but I know it was terrible like yours. I guess I just always felt a sort of familiarity about you. Maybe that's why I always wanted things to be better for you."  
Todd smiled soulfully at the other, until Johnny added, "I mean, I never hurt little kids anyways, but there was a time when I was so fuckin' crazy I might have killed you by accident. I wouldn't now, I've gotten a little better. I don't regret hurting people that deserved it, but I have hurt people before that didn't deserve it, and I really regret doing that. You definitely don't deserve it, so I won't hurt you physically, and I'll try not to hurt you any other ways too."  
Todd's smile almost wavered, it twitched, but he forced it back upward. Johnny probably didn't realize it, but as much peace he found in the solitude of the forest, as much as he loved to forget his humanity whenever he could, he was still trapped in that mortal human body, and he needed human interaction from time to time as much as he needed food and water.  
Todd simply nodded in understanding, "Thanks, Johnny..." He told him, before digging into his second taco.  
By pure chance, Sargatanas was heading down the same street as the Taco Smell, at the exact same time Todd and Johnny were frequenting it. He was grumbling to himself about what he would do if he found Todd. As punishment for losing him, Pepito had burned the demon's skin completely off, gave him a new set, burned it again, and again, before he'd finally kicked his ass back to the curb to go look for Todd.  
He'd been searching all over, along with most of the other top-ranking demons. They were all eager to be the one to find Todd and please their master - Though Pepito had been barely better than a petulant child since Todd disappeared, and no one really wanted to indulge his spoiled desires, they knew their true master 'Senior Diablo' would reward them handsomely if they continued to fulfill all his Dark Prince's whims.  
While passing by the Taco Smell, Sargatanas spotted Todd coming out of the very same establishment he was heading towards, and he immediately seized the chance to redeem himself. The demon's special powers were astral projection and transportation, so he didn't waste any time advancing on Todd the second he had him in his sight.  
Todd didn't immediately recognize Sargatanas' new skin (all the demons had been given replacements so they wouldn't be recognized) he just saw a strange man running at him. His eyes went big, and he stepped aside to get out of his way, but the man kept running towards him. Todd let out his signature squeak of terror, putting his arms up to protect himself, but then just as the demon was about to reach him, Johnny stepped in front of him, taking out one of several knives he had hidden on his person.  
"You picked the wrong person to fuck with today, mister." The homicidal maniac growled, crossing the distance left between him and the demon in a flash.  
Suddenly realizing there was someone else in the picture, Sargatanas tried to go around him at the last second, but Johnny caught him by the back of his jacket, right before the demon was about to reach for Todd, and threw him to the sidewalk. Then he leaped on top of the unknown man, bringing his knife down on his chest.  
"Johnny, don't!" Todd cried in vain. He still didn't recognize Sargatanas, he just didn't want to see anyone to get hurt or for Johnny to hurt anyone. He was gripped with fear, and he nearly broke into a run from the terrifying sight, but something stronger steeled him there. He didn't want to fight, but he couldn't run from this anymore, whatever it was and why it had chosen him...  
The unknown man was clutching the knife Johnny had plunged into him, to keep it inside him and to not let the blood gush out. It would only keep him alive a little bit longer, but he made use of that time, calling out to the younger man, "Todd..."  
Todd didn't recognize his face or voice, but he could see recognition of himself in the man's eyes. He just had to know who he was and why he'd attacked him. Why was something always chasing or attacking him? He approached the bleeding man and kneeled down next to him. "Why-?" He'd just barely begun to ask, when suddenly, the dying demon grabbed his shoulder, and using the last of his strength, he transported them back to Pepito's house, right in the middle of the living room where Pepito had been sulking on the couch.  
Todd fell over, disoriented from the ride, and Pepito immediately rushed to him, pinning him down since he naturally assumed Sargatanas' fate was his doing. Todd struggled against him weakly, casting doubt on Pepito's assumptions as he implored his best friend, "Pepito, you've got to help him!"  
Pepito glanced over at the demon with only a small amount of pity. He'd been warned. "I'm sorry Sargatanas, but there's nothing even I can do for you now. I thank you for your years of service."  
The demon's eyes went wide, and he nodded just once before the light of life left them. Pepito then steeled his gaze back at Todd, and he knew, they both had some 'splaining to do.  
"What the hell, Todd." Pepito demanded of him first. "Why would you shun my protection, why would you KILL your parents? I couldn't care less about them, but do you have any idea what you've done to yourself?!" At first he'd been almost calm, but by the last sentence his voice was starting to get hysterical.  
Todd narrowed his eyes at him. If Pepito thought he was going to cower and pacify him like he usually did, well this time he was wrong. "I DIDN'T kill my parents, Pepito! But why don't YOU tell me what would have happened if I did? What the hell have you been supposedly -protecting- me from? You tell me that, Pepito!"  
The demon prince stared down at the boy in shock. "...Agaliarept. Asmodeus." He called, and the two demons appeared behind him, ready to serve. "Say what you just said again, Todd. You two tell me if he's lying or telling the truth." He instructed.  
Todd took a deep breath. Agaliarept had the power to reveal secrets and mysteries, and Asmodeus could read thoughts. But he wasn't worried about either, because he was telling the truth. "I did NOT kill my parents. I attacked my dad, but then my mom stabbed me. Johnny C finished them both off before they did the same to me. I haven't killed anyone."  
The two demons glanced back at Pepito. "His mind hides nothing. He speaks the truth." Asmodeus answered, and Agaliarept nodded with him in agreement, and then as quickly as they came, they left.  
Instantly relieved, Pepito flung his arms around Todd shoulders, hugging him tight. Tighter than Todd could struggle against, so he didn't bother. "I'm so glad to hear that, amigo..."  
He took a calming breath, still and unmoving in his friend's embrace. Todd was still ticked off, but he didn't push Pepito away, though part of him really wanted to, part of him also wanted to return that hug, and he restrained that part of him too. "WHY are you so glad to hear it, Pepito?" He insisted on knowing first.  
The antichrist sighed and stepped back from the unrequited hug, but held on to Todd's shoulders securely. Todd still let him. Then Pepito gave Todd a 'you really should know this already' sort of look. "Todd, you've always known you were different from other humans on Earth, you saw and experienced things they never do. Some people are just like that, you're not the only one, you just happen to be amigos with me, future prince of Earth. I just wanna protect my best friend, Todd. I always thought of you as the little brother I always wish I had..."  
Todd took another steely breath, -really- restraining the urge to hit the demon now. That was all just lies, and really damn manipulative ones too. Todd was the one who always wished Pepito was the brother he never had, had always wished Rosemary was the mother he never had, that the whole charade they'd been playing for the past several years was true, but it wasn't. They'd never spoken of it outright, but Todd knew what Pepito really wanted from him, what he really wished Todd was to him. He'd caught Pepito giving him those fiery gazes more than once. But Pepito never pushed him to do anything, he had to admit that at least to himself.  
He let out the breath, bull-like. "Pepito, I don't have to be a mind-reader like Asmodeus to know you're hiding something that concerns me from me!" Todd suddenly shouted, glaring at his 'friend' and reminding him harshly, "Friends don't do that! And if you want to know why I left in the first place, listen up - I'm really grateful to you that you rescued me from the asylum without asking for my soul in return. You've included me in your family and sheltered me while I was still a child without asking anything in return, and I swear to you, I really, truly am more grateful than I can ever say for that. But, you keep asking me to voluntarily give you my soul, and you just say that if I do it will protect me, but you won't tell me why! You can't expect me to not think something's up with that!"  
Pepito looked offended, but also at least a little ashamed of himself. "Okay amigo, that's fair, just calm down-"  
"No! I'm not done!" Todd abruptly interrupted him, getting it all off his chest while he still had the nerve. "Now about all this stuff that just happened - I'm sorry I just left without telling you, for worrying you. I haven't been feeling well for a while, and I should have told you, but I wasn't sure I should when you were hiding other stuff from me! Then you were so worried about me killing my abusive asshole parents you sic your demons on me, and you were so relieved when you found out it was Johnny who killed them and now everything's fine - WHY?"  
Now Pepito was definitely more offended than ashamed, and he barked back at Todd, "Todd, seriously, CALM DOWN! If you really wanna know, I'll tell you everything I know, okay?" He sighed and rubbed his forehead around his horns.  
Todd took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It worked, but just barely. "Okay. I'm listening."  
Pepito finally took his hands back from Todd's stiff shoulders and put them in his pocket. "Like I said amigo, you ARE different from most other humans. There's a handful of others out there like you, but that's it..."  
"Like me how?" Todd pressed.  
The Dark Prince sighed, "I don't know how else to say this Todd, but... Your awful parents aren't the only curse you were born with..."  
"I'm cursed?" He restrained the urge to add 'tell me something new', and instead settled for, "How?"  
Pepito looked around, as if suspicious of being spied on in his own home. "This world we live on, our home planet... It's kind of like a cannibal. Like an angry god who demands sacrifices. Certain humans are randomly chosen, and out of that group, one of them is not-so-randomly chosen to fulfill a dark, ancient role. They're driven to madness, compelled to kill. The energy of the souls that die accumulate until there is enough, and then, they're flushed away into the lifestream of the planet, like waste to be renewed and reintegrated into usable energy. That's why we call the unlucky human chosen to fulfill this role, the 'waste lock'."  
Todd swallowed, his throat thick with fear. "And... I'm the waste lock?"  
"No, no!" Pepito rushed to correct him, "That's why I was so relieved! You could have become the waste lock though, which is why I was so worried. You, Todd, are one of the four chosen humans that can become the waste lock, we call them waste lock candidates. When a new waste lock is needed, the waste lock candidates are tempted by dark forces to kill. The first candidate to give in to this urge and kill another human being, they become the waste lock."  
Todd's eyes went wide with realization. He'd come so close to losing everything, even and especially his mind. But also his memories, crappy though they were, and his humanity, underrated as it was. They were still his. Johnny had unknowingly saved him from that terrible fate, and it wasn't the first time either...  
"So you must understand," Pepito went on, relieved at the look of realization on his friend's face. "That's why, once I realized what you were, I had to protect you from that... And if you really wanna know, that's why I keep asking you to give us your soul. Because it's the only way to save you from this curse."  
Todd couldn't deny he was curious about that and awfully tempted, but he knew not to accept deals with anyone, especially the devil, without knowing all the details. "And how would giving you my soul save me, Pepito?" He asked blandly, as if they were talking about something completely mundane.  
"Because..." Pepito almost growled back. He was trying to give Todd everything he ever wanted, if only the stubborn boy would really think about it. "If you gave us your soul, you could use your wish to be free from your role of waste lock candidate. You could finally live a life free from your curse."  
Todd was no fool. Anything that sounded that good could never be true, and even though Pepito was trying to skate around the dilemma, Todd put it together for himself. "The catch being," He retorted dryly, "Is that if I'm free, someone else will have to be enslaved in my place." Not to mention, if Senior Diablo owned his soul, he'd eventually have to pay a price that he knew would be far steeper than it was worth.  
This time Pepito did growl, he downright snarled, and huffed out a breath of flame to the side of him. "BAH! Todd, why does such a trivial thing matter to you?! You're special, who cares if one of the -billions- of assholes on this planet takes your place?!"  
"I won't do it, Pepito." Todd answered, his resolve unmoving. "I will not make someone else face the horrors I've been through, but ESPECIALLY not a child - Because it would have to be a child, wouldn't it." He knew because of what Johnny had said about his own childhood, how it was so similar to his. No doubt the demons would only accept a young, new, -fresh- sacrifice... Todd couldn't help but shudder.  
Pepito sighed deeply and irritably, knowing this was a battle he wasn't going to win peaceably. Todd was right. The darkness would only accept a replacement for it's chosen sacrifice if it was younger or significantly stronger. Either way Todd would never agree. "Then the only way I can protect you-"  
Todd wouldn't let him finish what he knew he was going to say. "Pepito, stop, and listen to me very cafefully. I am truly grateful to you for protecting me when I needed you." He suddenly reached over and gathered his friend into a tight hug, and murmured against his shoulder. "I really am... But it can't go on like this anymore. Your protectiveness is more like a prison. I still want to be your friend, but I want to live my own life too..."  
Pepito hugged Todd back tightly, breathing subtly against Todd's neck. "I think I understand, amigo..." He remembered back when Todd had drawn that picture, and the initial look of betrayal Todd hadn't been able to hide when Pepito ripped it to shreds. Pepito regretted it now, and even then he knew he shouldn't do it right before he did. But the girl in the picture... Well, certainly is had to be only a coincidence that she looked so much like THAT girl, the one that the Underworld had it's radar on for years, because Todd had never met her. But it had still unnerved him more than he would ever admit. "You wanna do normal human stuff, like get a job, get your own place, and have a girlfriend or maybe even two, right?" He pulled back and gave his friend a knowing smile.  
Todd blushed but smiled back, "Yes, Pepito, exactly..." He hoped beyond hope that his friend truly understood.  
"Okay," Pepito nodded, "But, in the meantime, where are you gonna stay until you get a job and find your own place? Even just renting costs quite a lot, Todd, and you probably couldn't even be hired anywhere but a burger joint with only your GED..." Rosemary had tutored Todd at home and Pepito would take in his work. It had secretly been one of the few activities Todd really enjoyed in that house. "And then on top of that, until a new waste lock candidate is chosen, you're still in danger. You'll be tempted to kill..."  
"Now that I know about that, I'll be able to fight the urge." Todd insisted, disappointed with Pepito estimation of him. "My parents were the only people I had such a strong vendetta against. People can be assholes but I promise I won't kill anyone. I'll run from danger if it comes to me, I swear. And, as for where I'll stay, it just so happens that my old neighbor Johnny has graciously offered to let me stay in his old house, since he doesn't live there anymore..." He was trying to look casual about his undeniably weird option, but Pepito pointed it out right away.  
And he gave his friend a very odd look. "Um, Todd... I'm pretty sure you know Johnny was the last waste lock, right? He's kinda almost all dried up, like a battery running out of juice, but he's still really dangerous. Just look what he did to Sargatanas."  
"Sargatanas attacked us! If I knew it was him I would have tried to help! And Johnny's never tried to hurt me, he's only ever helped me." Todd countered, "He's not even going to stay any longer than it takes to help me clean the place up."  
"Todd, are you even listening to yourself? You're cleaning up a mass gravesite with a serial killer so you can bunk there?"  
"It's only going to be temporary! Until I get a job and save up enough to get a new place, and then-"  
"Todd. Todd, for crying out loud, listen..." Pepito reached up and rubbed his forehead. "You don't need to toil like a slave to get by, and women never go for broke dudes anyways. Lucifuge Rofocale could shower you with unending riches, and Satanachia could have a hundred women begging just to be your foot-stool, if you just-"  
"I will NEVER sell ANYONE my SOUL, Pepito!" Todd interrupted in a suddenly fierce shout, frustrated tears starting to well up in his eyes. "Not for anything! I want to live my life the way I want to, and I want you to let me! I won't be able to keep being considerate of you if you won't do the same for me! And as much as I hate to say it, if you can't learn to let me go - You might just lose me completely!" Todd went suddenly silent after that outburst, afraid of his own nerve. Had he really, finally just said it?  
Pepito's eyes went wide, and for the first time ever, Todd recognized a hint of fear in them. Yes he had indeed said it, and Pepito could tell he meant it. "Todd, please, calm down..." He implored, his tone full of hurt. "I don't want you to feel like our friendship is a cage, I didn't realize you felt that way. I really only wanted to protect you, not make you feel stifled. If you really want to go... Then, of course you can..." He said 'of course' rather reluctantly, though.  
Todd took a breath of relief and hugged Pepito again. "Thank you, old friend..."  
Pepito stroked Todd's sepia-brown hair. "Just, one more thing, and this is very important! If you really want to be out there on your own, fine, and I'm sure you'll be okay..." He'd have his demons tracking him at a distance to make sure. "But there's still the other waste lock candidates to think about. Some of them may be extremely powerful, and besides that, until a waste lock is chosen, if another candidate or anyone else attacks you and you kill them, even in self defense, you'll become the waste lock. And if the waste lock attacks you and you kill them, you'll have to take their place. Either way, it's just a bad idea in general for you to be anywhere near them. But thankfully, there's a way to tell if someone bears the same curse as you..."  
Todd pulled away and looked at Pepito quizzically, and the demon went on, "When you see another waste lock candidate, you will feel some kind of unexplainably intense emotion. Just by looking at that person, for no reason at all, you'll suddenly feel completely terrified, or so sad it's like your heart has been crushed. Or so angry, so incredibly pissed off you wanna slap that person even though they've never said a word to you in their life. If you suddenly feel that way looking at a person you've never met and have no reason to feel any which way for, it means they're a waste lock candidate, and if so, for your own good, you need to stay away from them. Okay, Todd?"  
"I will, Pepito. Thank you. Trust me, I'll be careful." Todd tried to assure him.  
Pepito didn't look certain, and he added, "Wait, just ONE more thing - Take this. Promise me you'll call if you ever need anything." Pepito pulled a cell phone out of mid-air and handed it to his friend. Todd took it, for now. It would ease his old friend's mind, and he owed him at least that, but he would get his own phone too when he could.  
"Thank you, amigo." Todd smiled at him sincerely. "But, uh... One last thing from me too - I kinda just remembered I disappeared on Johnny..." He mumbled fearfully, realizing it rather suddenly. "Shit, I hope that didn't freak him out too bad..."  
Yeah, disappearing on a guy that got violent when he questioned his sanity was never a good thing to do...  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	4. Chapter 4

A Well-Earned Slumber  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Johnny looked around in bewilderment and annoyance, "Squee? Squee, where did you go?" Finding him nowhere in his immediate vision, he started to panic. Had Squee even been there at all the past few days? "SQUEE?! SQUEEEEEE!"  
"Duuuude, will you, like, pipe down?" Some dirty-blond guy sitting at the nearby bus-stop requested, rubbing a finger in his ear. "Man, you're even louder than my weed-Hahaha..."  
Johnny snapped his attention towards the toasted idiot, his left eye twitching. "My NAME is NOT 'dude', you stupid, stoned white boy!"  
Said stoner lifted his sunglasses and peered at the maniac, "But, you're white too..."  
"I'M LATINO YOU IGNORANT FUCK!" Johnny suddenly screeched, pulling a gigantic knife out of the waistband of his pants.  
"Whoooa, that knife looks reeeally sharp-AAAAIIIEEE!"  
Pepito and Todd apparated back in the same spot Todd had left, just in time to see Johnny stabbing the stoner right through his mouth, the blade coming out the back of his head. "SMOKE THIS, HIPPIE-!"  
"JOHNNY!" Todd shrieked in horror, "STOP IT!"  
Johnny actually did stop, looking back over his shoulder. "Oh hey. There you are, Squee. Where'd you go?" He replied casually, as if a man wasn't choking in death throes on the blade he was holding.  
Pepito sighed and rolled his eyes over at Todd. "Amigo, you're starting to see why I thought this was a bad idea, right...?"  
Todd ignored Pepito, stepping towards his older, crazier friend. "Johnny... Please put that knife away." Blinking in slight confusing, Johnny removed the knife from the now-dead stoner's head, wiped the blood on the back of his black pants, and put the knife away as he was asked. Todd took a deep breath, but it didn't relieve his stressed nerves any. "Johnny, why on Earth did you do that..."  
"...Hmm. You know, I actually already forgot why." He admitted, somewhat sheepishly.  
Todd smacked his forehead, "Johnny, you can't just do things like this..."  
"Actually, Todd, he can." Pepito again interrupted. "That's kind of his thing. Kill people in horrendous ways, then 'miraculously' get away with it - Did I mention this is a really bad idea?"  
"He's kinda right, on all accounts." Johnny agreed with the antichrist before Todd could protest, although the maniac didn't fully realize what Pepito was actually talking about. "We could seriously sit right here by this body until the cops got here and they wouldn't even blink at me."  
Todd let out a frustrated sort of 'squee' under his breath, "No, we can't! We were supposed to be doing the opposite of this, Johnny, remember? We needed to burn or immerse all the soul's bodies in earth and then you could go back to where you wanna be, we can't go adding more bodies or else the job will never get done!"  
Pepito sighed irritably himself and rolled his eyes, "Oh for crying out loud, Todd." He snapped his fingers and the stoner's body went up in flame and smoke. "There, problem solved."  
"Hey, that IS pretty nifty." Johnny remarked appreciatively, then crossed his arms towards Todd. "And I DID tell you the longer I stayed here, the more I'd start to want to kill people..." He reminded the boy fairly and sternly.  
Todd sighed, trying to be reasonable. "I know, Johnny. You did say that. So, lets get you back to your house so you don't have to deal with anyone else, okay?"  
"...Yeah, alright..." Johnny finally agreed, to Pepito's visible surprise. Wasn't this guy supposed to be incurably insane and a danger to everyone? Compared to how he'd usually act towards people bossing him around like Todd was, he was practically a purring kitten with the kid.  
Todd took a breath of relief, then turned back to his friend the antichrist. "Pepito, I've got things under control. Just let us finish the job and Johnny can go back where he's most comfortable. I promise I'll give you a call as soon as I've got everything settled, but until then, you should probably go back to helping your dad, don't you think?" He gave the demon a reassuring smile. "You know he doesn't like you shirking off your duties for a little ol' human like me."  
Pepito blew a hot breath out of his nostrils. "...Just, be REALLY careful, okay?"  
The human walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. "I promise Pepito, okay?"  
Pepito wasn't entirely convinced, but he didn't need to be - Fleurety was on the job now, watching Todd from afar. She would intervene if it was necessary. "Alright, amigo. Call me." He replied with a final nodd, and then with a snap of his fingers, he had vanished into thin air.  
Todd took a breath of relief and then turned to Johnny. "Hey, how about I get the bleach and you head on home? I can handle it, don't worry."  
Johnny shrugged, not worrying over the boy, to Todd's relief. "Yeah, alright. See ya at home."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd returned later that night with plenty of bleach and as many job applications as he could find. Which took a while and gave him some pretty limited options, as most places insisted on an online application, which Todd obviously couldn't manage at his current residence.  
He filled them out while Johnny worked on clearing out more bodies, and when he'd finished, he joined Johnny in the chores. It had been nearly a full week since he'd gotten a wink of sleep, but they were so close to finishing their work, though Todd was more exhausted than he'd ever been, he actually felt energized too. He was filled with a great sense of purpose, and honestly, the lack of sleep was making him feel kind of inebrieted too. He staggered and swayed all over the place but he kept working.  
Finally the last of the bodies had been taken away and buried, or thrown at the very bottom level of the house, which was basically just a huge hole in the ground itself, with no supporting structures. So the bodies thrown there would eventually immerse in the Earth, just like the skeletons that had been there long ago but no longer were.  
Todd was completely terrified the entire time they were in that final room, staring down that deep, dark hole in the middle of the room as they threw the last of the human remains down into the pit. It felt almost as if he were being choked by very weak hands the entire time until Johnny finally closed the door. Still, the terror stayed with him until they had risen a few levels. Only when they had left the last of the still-dirty levels behind them, and began to smell more bleach than blood again, did Todd finally calm his nerves.  
He was still going to clean the blood stained rooms later, but getting rid of the bodies had been the most important task. Fulfilling that purpose settled on Todd heavily, and with every stair-step he felt the last of his energy leaving him. They still had five more sets of stairs to climb when Todd's final reserves finally gave up on him, and he passed out right on the stairs into a sleep so deep it was almost like death.  
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Todd had no idea how long he'd been asleep when he finally woke up, but it had been almost thirty-seven hours. He hadn't had a single dream the entire time he was asleep, it was pure darkness, devoid of all thoughts. It was kind of scary when he first woke up. Still incredibly tired, he'd been paranoid and thought that he'd actually been dead for a few moments.  
But then his stomach reminded him with a very sharp ache that he was indeed alive, for now, but he'd better eat something quick, or it might not stay that way.  
His mouth was dry as a bone too, so the first thing he did was chug down a Mountain Spew soda from a six pack Johnny had left two behind of. He'd also left behind a note pinned to Todd's shirt, which Todd finally noticed after the sugary drink had brought him halfway back to life.  
He took the needle that pinned the paper to his shirt out, then began to read it to himself, "Hey Squee, you fell down on the stairs. You still had a pulse so I dragged you back up to the top level. I figured you might get scared if you woke up in the darkness and couldn't find your way back up. You were asleep for a pretty long time though, so I decided to just head on out. I left you a little bit of cash on the kitchen counter, the rest I put in my gas tank so I could get back to my cabin. It's not much, so be careful how you spend it, but it should get you by about a month. I'm sure a smart, hard-working kid like you will find a job by then - Hopefully, anyways. I'll probably check back in with you in a couple months or so. Good luck with everything, Johnny C."  
Todd smiled a bit before folding the paper and putting it away in a drawer. Then he downed the second soda and collected his applications to go turn them in.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
The Wack-Mart where Todd was first offered employment a few weeks later was far from his dream job, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and Johnny's cash had almost been spent. It was a bit easier to deal with after he got his first paycheck though. Since he didn't have to worry about rent, he spent most of his first wages stocking the cupboards with food.  
A couple of weeks later he finally had enough to get the water and electricity turned back on. He was both surprised and not really to find that nobody asked him about the house. Apparently someone had paid for the property in full at one time, so no one cared, and Todd couldn't bring himself to either. It was just nice to be able to take a hot shower again.  
But then again, bathroom he'd been forced to use the last month was not to his standards of cleanliness, even after soaking and scrubbing them in bleach. One of the windows was busted too, and always let in a cold draft at night. Todd had no intention of staying longer than he needed to, but in the meantime, these issues were just going to make things worse. So, with the last of that week's spare wages, he decided to visit a local bookstore he'd passed by on his way to work and buy a book about home improvement.  
Todd went in only with the expectation of finding a new book. He didn't expect to also find the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life.  
His eyes went with the second he saw her, and his heart skipped a beat before hammering loudly against his chest. He'd always secretly scoffed at the notion of 'love at first sight', even if he also secretly wanted to believe in it, he knew it was impractical. But there was no denying what he was feeling now as he stared at the lovely lady - Her dark magenta hair pulled into a ponytail, her lips painted with a similar dark red hue, and her amber-brown eyes shining like gold. She was his idea of perfection, and he was head over heels in love with her.  
His eyes fell on her name-tag, and he read it aloud in a bit of a dreamy sigh, "Devi..."  
Hearing her name, the woman looked up from the books she'd been stocking. "...Uh, yeah? Can I help you?"  
Shocked at her acknowledgement, Todd's brows shot upwards and he sputtered, "O-Oh! Uh, s-sorry - Can you help me fix my toilet? I MEAN-" Todd literally smacked his own forehead. "Can you help me find a book, about toilets-ABOUT FIXING TOILETS. A book about how to fix toilets, and how to fix other stuff!" Todd finally finished awkwardly, and in an embarrassed rush.  
She looked at him strangely, with a raised brow, for a second or two. Then she laughed a little, and motioned for him to follow her. "Yeah, the home improvement section is this way."  
She led him to the area he was looking for, but when he got there, he found himself unable to take his eyes off of her. Devi had noticed his staring all along, but hadn't decided not to say anything, until now. "Is there something on my face, or something...?" She asked, trying to show her annoyance while also being polite, for the sake of her job.  
"Oh, no, sorry! It's just - Uh, you look a lot like my mom!" He sputtered the half-lie back to her. It of course wasn't the reason he was staring, but it was also true - Minus the pretty dyed hair and extra fifteen or so years of youth, she did resemble his mother quite a bit.  
"Oh, I see." She answered with a little, knowing smile. "Well, let me know if I can help you with anything el-"  
"Are you guys hiring, by any chance?" Todd blurted out. "I'm, um, new in town, and I got hired at Wack-Mart, but I'm still looking..." Besides just not liking the environment of the workplace, Todd also knew about Johnny's 'W'-word idiosyncrasy, and dreaded having to tell him if he asked. He wasn't sure if saying 'Wack' alone was as dangerous as adding the 'y', but he didn't feel like finding out.  
Devi shrugged and nodded in passive understanding. "Yeah, I'm sure you are. Wack-Mart is a crap place to work, they treat their employees like serfs. And the economy is so tough almost everyone has two jobs. But yanno, we actually are looking to replace a girl that just left. You'll need to fill an application online though."  
Todd almost began to look disappointed, until Devi added charitably, "If you don't have internet, there's a library about five blocks from here where you can get it."  
He burst into a smile again, "Thanks so much! I'll do that right now!"  
She proceeded to give him a funny look. "Aren't you forgetting something?"  
"...Oh!" Todd smacked his forehead again. "Of course, the book!" Blushing, he reached over and picked out one that looked informative but simple - Home Improvement for Dummies. "Thanks so much for all your help, Devi!"  
"Hey, thank you for pronouncing my name right. You wouldn't believe how often people foul it up." She replied nonchalantly, then added, "Here, I'll go ahead and ring you up, too."  
He followed after her gladly and gratefully to the register and paid for his book. Before he finally left, Devi told him, "Hey, good luck, kid."  
"Th-Thanks! You too!" Todd replied nervously, and finally forced himself to look away from her as he left, lest he walk into a door.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	5. Chapter 5

Friend or Foe  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
"Oh god, what is WRONG with me..." Todd was groaning to himself later that week, his face burning red and stuck firmly in the book he'd bought. He was putting it to good use and had just installed a shiny new toilet after his next paycheck came in, but every time he opened the book he wanted to smack himself with it. He'd been SO transparent! As if he'd never seen a beautiful girl before! Devi must have thought he looked like such a creep, she'd never call him ba-  
RING RING!  
Todd almost dropped the phone twice in his hurry to answer it. "H-Hello?"  
"Hi, is this Todd Casil?"  
He recognized her voice right away, even if she didn't recognize his. "Yes, this is him!"  
"Hey Todd, it's Devi Devine, the manager of Corners Book Store. I'm calling back about your application. Can you come in for an interview this Monday?"  
Todd put down the phone for a second to do a little happy-dance, then promptly picked it back up and answered, "Yeah, of course, that sounds great!"  
"Okay, cool. See you then." Devi answered neutrally, then hung up.  
Todd hunted the local bargain stores for the most professional-looking outfit that he could find. Of course, he had no idea what constituted as 'professional' for a guy, so he ended up picking out a t-shirt with the print of a tuxedo on it. After all, a real tuxedo might be a bit much.  
When he showed up to the interview, Devi snorted and snickered at the sight of him, but she didn't mention how ridiculous it looked. Truthfully Todd was still the best-dressed of all the applicants so far. She proceeded with the interview questions and Todd did his best to be professional, though he was sure the entire time he was blowing it, and sweated profusely.  
"Alright, that all sounds good." Devi finally announced, "To be honest Todd, I was pretty sure I was gonna hire you from the get-go. You're the only applicant who I was sure could even read, and as you can imagine, knowing how to read is kind of a big deal when you're working at a bookstore."  
"I can write too!" Todd added eagerly.  
Devi snorted again, "I'm sure you can. There's really only one thing I'm concerned about with you, Todd. I'm not going to have to worry about you staring at me while you're supposed to be working, am I?"  
Todd's face went red with embarrassment and he stammered back, "N-No ma'am! I..." He sighed deeply. "I really AM sorry about that... But, like I said before, I really think it's because you look so much like my mom. She... Well, she's not been around, for a while..." He informed her quietly, and then he softly admitted, "She died..."  
Devi's eyes went wide, and then she glanced down at her lap. "Oh. I'm so sorry to hear that... My mom died a few years back too. And my dad died when I was just a kid. I'm sorry, Todd."  
Todd shook his head, "No, it's a perfectly legitimate question to ask - I'm really sorry if I seemed like such a weirdo! I promise I'll work hard!"  
Devi smiled and nodded. The kid inspired such a weird feeling in her. She wasn't really a maternal person, but for some reason, she wanted to help and protect this strange boy. So she reached out her dominant hand for him to shake, "Well then, you'll be starting bright and early this Friday."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd quit his job at Wack-Mart as soon as he could so he could work full time at the book store. He worked tirelessly when on the company dime, and then he usually stayed there an hour or two afterwards to read as well.  
One night as they closing up, Devi asked him, "Hey, do you ever watch movies, Todd? I'm not too big on them, but there's a neat-looking indie film playing this weekend that I was planning on seeing. My friend Tess is gonna come with, and I have a roommate that said she might come too. Do you feel like coming with us too?"  
"No way Devi, that sounds terrible!" Todd replied sarcastically, then gave her a big grin. "I'd love to!" She grinned back at him, and Todd added, "I didn't know you had a roommate though?"  
"Yeah, she's a girl about your age, actually. She can be kinda intense, though. She doesn't get along with most people. But if she lets you get to know her, she's actually a really cool person."  
"She sounds cool!" Todd agreed, although he really wasn't -that- interested. He didn't bug Devi about his feelings, which he'd managed to mute a bit, but he still had them.  
"Great, then meet us at the theater this Saturday at eight, okay?"  
"Definitely!"  
"Just... One more thing though?"  
"What's that?"  
"...Don't wear that dumb tuxedo-shirt."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd met Devi and Tess that night in a plain navy blue shirt and jeans, "Hey, isn't your roommate coming?" He inquired, noticing her absence.  
"Nah, not tonight. She got held up with something. Maybe some other time, though." Devi answered, and Todd shrugged. They entered the movie theater, and though Todd normally didn't care much for dark spaces, the movie was pretty interesting. It was about an alien girl trying to pretend she was a normal human - Weird, but interesting.  
After the movie Tess said goodbye headed down one side of the street, while Todd and Devi made their exit down the other. They talked about what they thought of the movie for a while, and then when they were bored of that, Todd inquired, "So, what's your roommate like? Oh, and what's her name?"  
"Uh..." Devi hesitated. "I think I'll let her tell you that herself. Just, whatever you do, DON'T laugh."  
"...Is it really that bad?"  
"Seriously Casil, for the sake of your immortal soul. Don't. Laugh."  
It was already dark and late by the time the movie started, and now it was only darker and later. Todd and Devi actually enjoyed the cold night air, the darkness, and the lovely crescent moon that just barely lit the sky tonight. But they weren't the only freaks that came out at night...  
They were passing an alley when a large, dirty hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Todd's mouth, dragging him into the darkness. His muffled protests against the hand alerted Devi, and she stopped and followed them into the alley. "Hey, let him go you creeps!"  
"Him? A gruff voice answered, chuckling derisively. "Aw man, I thought it was a chick..."  
A skinnier, and even uglier man stood besides the large, scarred brute that was holding Todd hostage against his chest. The rat-faced little man replied to his bulldog-like cohort, "I dunno man, I don't think it's gay as long as he looks like a chick. That's how it works in prison, yanno? If it looks like a bitch, you make it your bitch! Ass is just as good as pussy anyways."  
The bulldog-man growled then. "Maybe to you, you fuckin' homo, but I like the pussy."  
"Oh yeah?!" Devi suddenly shouted, cracking her knuckles and neck and getting into a professional fighting stance. "Then let him go and take me on, big guy! That is, if you can!" She challenged him seriously.  
"No, Devi, don't-!" Todd began as the large man let go of his mouth and shoved him over to the skinnier assailant, but then the skinny one grabbed him by the mouth too and held his arms behind his back, and he could only watch with horror as the beastly man advanced on his much smaller friend.  
From the top of the building that loomed over them, the demon Fleurety watched with silent interest. She would intervene if Todd's life was threatened, but for now she waited and watched as the human girl took to the challenge herself. Things might actually work out better this way...  
Devi didn't move a single muscle until she was perfectly ready to, and then she suddenly jumped up with the agility of a cat, twisted her whole body around in mid-air, and swung her leg out. Her foot caught the huge brute right across the side of his face and head, and his head whipped almost all the way around from the force of her kick. He wobbled for a moment, and then fell onto his face, an instant knock out.  
The ratty man's mouth dropped open in shock, and Todd took the opportunity to bite his hand and wrench his arms free from behind his back. Angered by the attack, the degenerate socked Todd across the cheek, sending him back a few steps until he tripped over the unconscious brute and fell on his back, hitting the back of his head on the ground.  
But Devi was on the rat-man the very next second, and punched him hard, right square in the middle of his nose. He too went down just as quickly as his partner, blood spurting from his broken face.  
Todd was groaning and rubbing the back of his aching head when Devi pulled him to his feet and dragged him off, proving once again that she was much stronger than her skinny frame would suggest. Afterwards she led him back to her apartment to dress his wounds.  
He sat on her toilet as she washed the blood off her hands, then retrieved the bactine and bandages. She wrapped her hand with some gauze, then poured some of the antiseptic onto a cotton ball and began to dab at the cut across Todd's cheek. Apparently the man that hit Todd had been wearing a ring, and it left a pretty deep gash.  
"Aw, man... Sorry the night ended so badly. Hope you like the look of dramatic scars, 'cause you're probably gonna have a pretty gnarly one here on your cheek..." She mentioned, trying to be gentle as he winced from the stinging in his cheek.  
"Could have been worse..." He replied, though he couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice. It wasn't really about the scar though. He was disappointed in himself, in his inability to help her the way she had helped him. He felt so weak, so pathetic...  
She seemed to sense what he was thinking and feeling, and suggested, "Hey, why don't you take a self-defense class? Like karate or jiu-jitsu or something? It'll make you feel more confident."  
He nodded slowly, then stayed still as she applied the large bandage to his cheek. It suddenly occurred to him as she did so, had his mother ever done anything like this for him? Bandaged him up when he got bruised and bloodied? He couldn't remember, but he seriously doubted it...  
He didn't realize his eyes had gathered tears until two fat droplets spilled over onto his cheeks, which gave both him and Devi pause. Todd quickly wiped them away and sniffled, "S-Sorry, I didn't mean to..."  
"It's okay..." Devi replied right away, "You had a hard night, it's understandable..."  
But Todd shook his head, "It's not that, it's..." He took a deep sigh and blurted out, "My mom, I don't think she ever bandaged me up like this when I was a kid. She wanted to be left alone a lot. She even forgot my name sometimes..."  
Devi looked down on his bent head with pity. "I'm sorry, Todd..." She whispered, not sure what else to say. She didn't think words could make something like that better, anyways. So instead, she wrapped her arms around him and led his head to rest on her shoulder.  
Involuntarily, he went almost slack against her embrace for a moment, drawing in her warmth and her compassion. Pepito had tried to give him hugs a few times when he was sad, but it was completely different from this, and Todd now realized why - Pepito would always squeeze him possessively, but Devi merely held him, freely.  
Todd wondered - Was this what love was supposed to feel like? He couldn't be sure, because he'd never felt it before. Rosemary truly loved her own son, but Todd always knew she was just faking it for him. Nice as it was for her to at least try to fake it for him, he knew it wasn't genuine. But this... It was the strangest feeling. He felt so happy it was like his chest was full of helium, and he could just float away. But the dichotomy of the sadness of his past kept him grounded like his feet were encased in cement.  
Devi finally pulled away a moment later and ruffled his hair. "I'll get you a pillow and a blanket and you can sleep on my couch tonight. Is that okay with you?"  
He nodded gratefully and she went to do just that. He took himself to the living room while she gathered the items, sitting on the couch and taking the pillow and blanket when she came back with them. "By the way," Devi added before she retreated back to her own room. "My roommate will be getting in late tonight, so don't freak out if you hear her coming in, okay?" He nodded in understanding. "Okay, goodnight Todd."  
"Night Devi." He returned with a smile. "And, thank you..."  
She smiled a little sadly back at him before heading back, "No problem kid. Get some rest now."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Devi had a pretty neat clock in the living room that beamed the time in red light up at the ceiling, and was seen clearly when it was dark. Red digital numbers read 3:00 in the morning exactly when the dual sounds of keys jingling and some kind of handheld game system beeping and booping woke him. The sounds were accompanied by a feeling so shocking it had Todd completely roused from sleep in a second, jolting upright from the couch and staring at the door as the lock clicked and the knob turned.  
He was afraid. Very afraid. Downright terrified and he couldn't explain why. Obviously it was Devi's roommate, probably anyways, but panic had seized him suddenly, as if he knew there was a monster on the other side of that door. As a matter of fact, he felt now the way he had when he'd first met Johnny as a child. Pepito's warning rang through his head. He knew what this had to mean, even if he didn't want to believe it.  
Devi's roommate was a waste lock candidate.  
The door opened, and a girl's face came barely into his view by the light of the brand new GameSlave G6 she held in her hand. Those had only just come onto the shelves at WackMart yesterday, though she'd had hers for over a month by then. Though still gripped with panic, Todd had to admit, she didn't look as terrifying as he'd expected for a moment.  
Actually, she looked like she could be Devi's sister. Her hair was the same shade, her skin the same complexion. But this girl had squint-y eyes, focused on her game as she closed the door behind her. She was pretty, Todd couldn't deny that, despite her head being just a little on the large side - But of course he was much too terrified of her to dare mention that.  
She was still pretty… But pretty damn spooky, too. Especially when she finally bothered to look up from the screen to make eye contact with him, still playing her game at the same time she did this instead of pausing it. "Hey." She said simply, her voice feminine but deep.  
"H-Hi." He returned weakly. "I'm Todd Casil…" He supplied next, still curious about the bait Devi had given him about her name, despite the horror of learning what she was.  
"…Gaz Membrane." She answered after a pause, her voice making the syllables somehow sound like a threat.  
Jesus Christ on a cracker, Devi hadn't been lying. It took all his willpower, not to mention his terror of her tone, not to laugh. If the girl was anything like Devi, she could kick his ass in a New York minute. Not to mention, as a waste lock candidate, very possibly the waste lock herself, she could do much worse than that. And Devi was living with her… Damn it, what was he going to do?  
Well for the moment, he was going to watch and see what she did. She was still squint-staring directly at him, even though her fingers were still rapidly pressing buttons. It seemed she too was having some kind of reaction to him. Todd wondered what she could be feeling in conjunction with him, when an ugly sneer suddenly overtook her otherwise pretty lips. Apparently, he pissed her off.  
"Devi told me what happened to you guys tonight." She suddenly and very bluntly stated, and Todd froze. He had several mixed, intense emotions about that - He was a little angry at Devi for telling her, but he didn't want to blame Devi, and supposed she needed to tell someone close about such a traumatic thing happening to her. So he redirected his anger at Gaz instead. Why was she bringing it up? After turning her amber-colored eyes back to her G6, she began to explain, "You're lucky Devi was there, or else you definitely would've gotten raped."  
His eyes went wide with indignation at first and he gasped at her crude language, but when he answered he kept his voice as low and as calm as hers. No need to wake Devi, this was just between the two freak-of-nature waste lock candidates she had the misfortune of attracting as friends. "Thank you for stating the obvious." He replied coldly, but with fury seething hot underneath. He didn't like being reminded of that disturbing detail. It led to memories he'd almost agreed to a lobotomy to forget.  
"And thank you for putting my friend in danger because you're too weak to literally save your own ass. Have you ever had your ass raped, Todd?" She blurted out with not even an iota of shame. Todd's mouth fell as she went on, "I haven't of course, but I've heard it's excruciatingly painful, not to mention violating as hell. You'd think learning to prevent something like that would be first priority for anyone. But by the looks of you, I'd say you've never fought back against anyone in your life. Have you, Todd?"  
"That's not true!" He yelled back at her, immediately clamping a hand over his mouth right after. He hadn't meant to raise his voice, but she'd made him so angry and ashamed. Part of him wanted to defend himself, but part of him was still guilt-stricken about putting Devi in danger, and therefore sort of agreed with Gaz. "I would never just LET something like that happen to me." He seethed out through his teeth. "How dare you assume something like that? You don't know me."  
She lifted an eyebrow at him, but still not losing an ounce of cool, unlike Todd. "I know that you have no problem letting women fight your battles for you."  
She was goading him. He refused to take it. He was not going to pick a fight with another waste lock candidate. As long as she was still one of the pure ones like him, he was fine just ignoring her existence. But, that was IF she was pure... "Whatever. I don't care what you think." He turned over onto his side, facing the couch and away from her.  
Wordlessly she stepped further into the apartment, almost passing him by the couch and into the hallway. But she stopped right by his head, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "You know, Todd, you kind of remind me of someone. My brother." That earned her a glance back. "You kind of, sort of, look like him... And, he was also an idiot."  
"Was?" Todd cut her off, stressing the word she'd used, and dreading the prospect of her answer.  
That made her pause. "…Yeah, was. He disappeared." She answered simply, not divulging the details, though Todd had already begun to speculate. Instead she went on, "Gotta say though… At least my stupid brother wasn't a weakling."  
"Will you just shut up and leave me alone?" Todd finally snapped at her, hissing to keep himself quiet. "I get it. You don't like me. Whatever, then just don't talk to me." He tried to reason his way around her. If they could just ignore each other's presences again, Todd didn't even care what hateful thoughts she had about him, as long as she wasn't going around killing people, he could tolerate that Devi's roommate was both a waste lock candidate and a total bitch besides. But his conscience nagged at him. What she was saying was insinuating that she might have killed before. She might be the waste lock. She might be a danger to Devi.  
"You're mad because what I'm saying is true." She returned arrogantly. "So change it. Next time fight your own battle. Because I'm telling you now, Todd Casil…" She leaned down, catching his eyes with hers. "If Devi ever gets hurt because of you… I will destroy your life as you know it."  
The threat was terrifying, even more so because of her vague language. By using words like 'disappeared' and 'destroy' and avoiding any incriminating words like "died" or "kill', Todd couldn't tell for sure if she was really a waste lock. The fact that she apparently cared about Devi too made his doubt of her as strong as his suspicion.  
Pepito had told him that once the waste lock had killed for the first time, their sanity would begin to slip away. Johnny's madness was very clear to see by anyone with a brain that comprehended what its senses told it. But Gaz didn't quite look insane. She seemed to have more control over herself than Todd had with himself, and who knew, she might really be innocent.  
As much as he wanted to heed Pepito's warning and stay away from her, he had to learn the truth about her first, and warn Devi if he needed to. So he would have to do the opposite of his friend the antichrist's warning. He needed to get to know her, to learn her secrets, and if she was the waste lock he would warn Devi, and perhaps Pepito would be able to help him too if he really needed it.  
"…Y-You're right, Gaz." He suddenly agreed with her, taking charge of his emotions, saying the opposite of what he felt like saying. And in doing so, truth began to emerge soon after it, though his initial plan was to deceive her. If he was going to try to learn Gaz's secrets, he would have to reveal some of his too. "I want to change myself… I want to learn how to fight, how to defend myself and my friends. I don't want what happened tonight to ever happen again. And I'd rather die than have Devi get hurt because of me." Hence why he was risking his life now to try to protect her, to return the favor. "I'm sorry I put her in danger because I'm weak. But I promise I'm going to get stronger. I promise it won't happen again."  
His answer seemed to affect her, to steal away a bit of her anger. She raised one eyebrow down at him, considering what he had said in silence. Finally she answered him, her voice just barely above a whisper, "It will happen again, Todd. This is a fucked up world we live in. Those men will lick their wounds and then they'll be on the streets again, prowling for an easier victim. And there's a million more like them in the world…"  
Todd looked at her intently, interrupting her to leave a crumb of bait. "I know. There's so many. Don't you just wish you could just kill them all?" He inquired, hoping she would agree with him, express her hatred and desire to kill, even if it was a righteous feeling, it was a start.  
"…No." She answered to his total shock. "Killing someone should always be a last ditch resort, even in the case of so-called 'people' like the disgusting wastes of flesh you met tonight. Sick as it is to admit, they serve their purpose. They show other people what they could degenerate into. They're like walking, breathing, eating, shitting reminders of what extreme perversion and an unwarranted sense of ego can mutate into. But even killing people like that, the people that truly deserve to die, still carries the burden of the punishment of murder."  
Damn, that was deep. "Punishment?" He repeated after her quietly, wondering what she meant by that. Did she know...?  
She withdrew instead. She seemed to not care enough to expend the energy to speak any more passionately about the matter. But she did answer him, "Nobody just gets away with murder. Not even when it's justified. But hey, we all have to die someday too, so no reason to trip about when a rapist or a pedophile has to die because they fucked with the wrong person. Now, wouldn't you like to be that wrong person, Todd?"  
He nodded his head shortly, the after a pause, quietly added, "Yeah…" Damn, things never just came easily for him, did they? That answer was far too sensible, and that unnerved him. She seemed to also know quite a bit about the ethical ramifications of murder, versus just the legal ones. "I would…" He added, his murmur increasing in volume until he was speaking almost aloud. "I will be that wrong person…"  
She didn't smile reassuringly as a person with any empathy would, but she cracked an eye mostly open and stared right at him with it. "Good. In that case, you better start keeping on your toes, because I plan to test you, Todd Casil. I'm going to attack you someday."  
He sat up and stared back at her, extremely alarmed. Attack him? Damnit that was just what he was trying to avoid!  
"Not today or tomorrow or even next week," She added almost immediately after - Only waiting long enough to enjoy the look of fright and nervousness that crossed his face. "I'll wait until you've started those classes Devi mentioned, but when you least expect it, I will jump your ass. I won't kill you, at least, I'll try not to. But I will fuck your shit up if you don't fight back. And then later I'll do it again, and again, until I'm convinced you can properly deal with it."  
Todd was confused about this girl, to say the very least. Was she trying to be nice, or did she just enjoy watching him squirm? Also since she was a candidate, it was obviously doubly unnerving. She might not really try to kill him if she wasn't the waste-lock, but if she did and she was she'd surely get away with it.  
But then again, she could just as easily walk into the kitchen right that moment, grab a knife and gut him with it. Why would she offer to teach him to defend himself if she held any intent to kill him? "Um… Okay…" He finally mumbled, trying not to sound too unwilling. "That's fair, I guess…" She narrowed her eyes at him, until he felt compelled to add, "Uh, th-thanks, Gaz…"  
She returned her eyes to her game, satisfied with his answers for now. "I'm going to bed now." She stated in closing, turning and walking down the hallway towards her room.  
Todd had begun to wish her "Good night", but she'd started to walk away before he was half done with it, so he trailed off half-way. He sighed, deciding he'd dealt with enough extreme weirdness and horror for one day. He closed his eyes and let his head hit the pillow like a brick, and slipped into unconsciousness with the greatest of ease.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
"Who needs hell when pain like this exists on earth?"  
Gaz raised an eyebrow at the low, guttural growl that came from the room next to hers. So she passed her room entirely and entered her roommate's, without knocking, because that simply didn't matter to either of them. They'd hadn't known each other terribly long, it'd been only a little over a year since they'd met as strangers simply sharing a room. But they'd both felt a strong sororal connection to the other from the earliest stages of their relationship. A relationship based about seventy-five percent of the time on the sweet understanding that everybody needed their "Shut The Fuck Up Time", especially the two of them.  
The main reason they got along so well was that they could simply be around each other and not say more than a few words a day, and both would be perfectly content with that. The other quarter of the time, they found themselves sharing with each other, talking about all things imaginable, from simply the events of the day they'd just spent, or of days spent much longer before that. Though it was more Devi than Gaz that cared to talk about her past, they both left much more unsaid than spoken.  
"Devi?" The younger girl inquired quietly, approaching the form of Devi's back, which was hunched in front of a messy easel, with red paint smeared all across it. The painting had been taking the basic form of two crude coffins, inside which were stick figure men with X's for eyes. It was pure shit by Devi's usual standards, but that was to be expected, with the broken, bandaged hand she was trying to use to paint.  
"Gaz-ma-tazz…" The older woman drawled back to her, sighing deeply. "Why does God hate me? As if my art hasn't been sucking enough lately, now I went and fucked my hand up. Fuck, what if I can only draw shitty stick-figures like this for the rest of my life…?" One of her eyes twitched, paranoid.  
Gaz rolled her eyes, and then did something she'd only ever done for a very few people in her whole life - She saved her game and turned it off. Then she placed the electronic on Devi's desk, and placed her hands on the other girl's shoulders, lightly squeezing. "They'll heal in under a week, drama queen. Anyways, I don't think you're in the state of mind to be trying to make art right now…" She leaned in, sliding her hands down over her shoulders and collar until her head rested against the crook of Devi's neck, and her hands crossed over her chest, embracing the older woman's back to the younger's chest.  
Gaz rarely showed Devi this much physical intimacy, and Devi was only the second person that had ever received any positive physical contact from Gaz whatsoever. But it was clear to Gaz that this special person of hers was in need of the attention, and to be completely truthful, Gaz just felt like doing it herself.  
In complete truth, she could see right through the oh-so transparent boy that slept in their living room, she knew he had feelings for Devi. She would soon put a stop to that, that was for absolute certain. The relationship between the two women was platonic, but Gaz still felt jealous of the newcomer, and wanted to re-establish her stake as the one of the two of them who was more important to Devi.  
Devi scowled a bit, but wasn't really annoyed with her friend - Secretly she enjoyed the contact, she just wouldn't say so. She liked to pretend the opposite, to keep the gestures seldom and therefore still enjoyable. They both much preferred their personal space to being as close as this, most of the time anyways. And both knew the gesture was not meant to be romantic, they both already understood how they felt about romance in general. It wasn't a top priority for either of them to say the least.  
But they agreed that they were both human at least in part, one more than the other at times, and both sometimes needed to indulge in limited contact with other humans. They left it at each other's discretion as to when, and so far neither had overstepped any boundaries. It worked for them.  
Devi growled back at her, "My state of mind can suck it. Art is my reason for existing, it's all that matters."  
"Continue your existence next week. Heal now. I command you." Gaz growled back into her neck, squeezing the body in her grasp more tightly. She wanted no more of Devi's back talk about this issue. She would work herself to death if left alone to do so. Gaz was sure Devi probably realized she went a bit crazy when she was left completely by herself, and knew it was in her best interest to let Gaz bitch her into doing things she might not feel like doing.  
"Oh no," Devi grinned, faking an attempt to escape from Gaz's arms, but with no strength in it. "Gaz-Attack!"  
Gaz in turn quirked a very small smirk-like smile, and answered the call, moving her hands up and down Devi's sides, lightly tickling her. It didn't last long, she ceased the motion quickly, before Devi laughed too loud and woke up the boy. But she didn't completely release her. "Will you take it easy this week, or do I have to make you really uncomfortable?" She asked, leaving the threat ambiguous on purpose.  
"I surrender, oh mighty conqueror Gaz~" Devi snorted in quiet laughter, but shrugged her off herself, putting the paintbrush into a nearby cup of water. "I'll go to bed and heal while I'm passed out."  
"Victory is mine." Gaz gave one last small smirk, before letting her go completely at last, and grabbing her GameSlave from the desktop. "Good night, Devi." She added, leaving the room with a series of beeps and boops.  
"Good night, Gaz." Devi returned, leaving her chair in front of her easel and climbing into bed.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	6. Chapter 6

Floppy Chavez  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd awoke the next morning to the sound of the television. The news. His eyes cracked open to see Devi and Gaz already awake, sitting in chairs nearby with plates of toast and eggs. He sniffed the air, the scent leading him to a matching plate waiting for him on the floor next to the sofa. There was a glass of apple juice too.  
Groggily he sat up and rubbed his eyes, and ran his hand through his hair to smooth it out of it's messy bed-head state. He reached first for the apple juice. It had a few cubes of ice added to it, which refreshed his disgusting morning breath. But the news was drawing his attention much faster than the delicious food, although he dug into that while he watched anyways, and idly wondered which girl cooked it. His bet was on Devi, but that Gaz was a mysterious one...  
On the news, he realized with dual shock, were the two men that had attacked them last night. Or rather, their dead bodies. A reporter with a microphone in one hand and a stick in the other was poking Gigantoid's head with said stick, explaining simply that both had died due to their injuries.  
They all watched the news segment in complete silence until it was over. Devi was the first to do anything - She turned off the TV. She was also the first to speak, although it was a few seconds later. "Guess this makes me a killer…"  
"Oh fucking please." Gaz immediately interrupted her immediately. "Don't be a drama queen about it. So what if you killed them. You wouldn't have if they hadn't put you into the position that you had to, so you have no guilt in the matter whatsoever, Devi."  
Todd surged with the same protective emotions Gaz was feeling towards their elder friend. "That's right," He agreed, adding, "And it's not like Gaz or I would turn you into the police, and I'm sure no one else that might possibly have seen what happened would either."  
"And if they did, I would find out who they were, make them pay, then use my father's virtually unlimited power and money to get you of jail and clean your record anyways." Gaz added, the sentence like a sack of bricks in the conversation.  
Todd stared at her. For someone who knew the moral ramifications of murder, she sure had the resources to get away with it…  
Gaz then added, "But besides that, you're still innocent. You wouldn't have attacked them if they hadn't attacked you. They as good as killed themselves. So just forget it ever happened." With that Gaz retrieved the channel changer from the other female and turned the TV back on, then switched over immediately to Spongerob Squareshorts.  
Todd laughed freely at the cartoon, and it soon made Devi feel easy enough again to join in with him.  
As soon as he'd finished his food and drink, Todd took his dishes to the kitchen and washed them, then returned to the living room and announced, "I gotta get going now. I've got work in a little over an hour, and I need to start making my way home."  
Devi looked up, "Oh, I forgot to ask, do you live far? I can give you a ride if you want."  
Todd was about to take her up on the offer, but Gaz interrupted quickly, "I'll take him. I didn't make it to the movie last night, so it's the least I can do." She reasoned coolly. Todd's heart sank to his stomach, waiting for Devi's answer. He would much prefer Devi's company to Gaz's, so he crossed his fingers.  
"Sure, that's a good idea. Give you guys a chance to chat it up. Sure you don't mind, Gaz?" Todd resisted the urge to groan. Oh well, it would give him the chance to gain a little more information on her, he supposed.  
"It's no problem." Gaz shrugged nonchalantly, getting up and setting her dishes in the kitchen before she returned to grab her coat and keys. "I assume you've got everything, Todd?"  
Todd looked around him, grabbing his wallet from the lamp stand and his blue sweater from the back of the couch, pulling it on. He trusted in Gaz's promise not to attack him until he stood a fighting chance, it was the only reason he was going with her alone.  
She led him outside of the apartment down to her parking space, where Todd stopped to stare. Jesus, she hadn't been lying about the power and money, if the piece of work she was driving was any indication. Anyone her age ought to be driving a car that was at least 10 to 15 years old. This car was last year's model, a sleek black luxury car with all the modern conveniences.  
"Why exactly," He had to ask, "Do you need a roommate when it's clear you could probably be living in a mansion?"  
She rolled her eyes, "I don't need any roommates that I don't want."  
"Fair enough." Todd shrugged, getting into the car. He took in a deep breath. It still had the new car smell. When Gaz peeled out of her parking space, she told Todd to enter his address into a keyboard on a screen on the dashboard, and as soon as he did so, a mechanical voice began to give her directions. A few minutes into the ride, Todd began to sweat. She maintained close to 15 miles over the speed limit wherever she was going. "Um, Gaz, you're speeding…" He mentioned nonchalantly. She didn't seem to have heard him, she had some metal music playing. He spoke up louder, "Gaz, I'm pretty sure you can get a ticket, going this fa-"  
Gaz abruptly turned off the music, leaving Todd shouting the last syllable much too loud for the sudden quiet. "My car tells me when there's a cop anywhere near me." Just as she said this, the car's metallic voice did just that, and she slowed down to the proper speed. "See?"  
He sighed, and looked out the window, trying not to scowl or pout. Spoiled rich girl. "Still, it's just not safe to drive that fast, you could get into an accident."  
She sighed, irritation clear in her voice. "With what my car is made out of, it would have to hit something made of the same thing before my car would even get a dent in it. 99.8 percent of what's driving on these roads and surrounding it will break before my car breaks."  
…Fucking hell.  
"Just WHAT does your dad do?" Todd had to ask - This girl seemed like with how rich she was, she ought to be the type to have bodyguards along with her high-tech armored car. Then again, she was also so scary and intimidating-looking, he didn't imagine she was attacked very often. And from how she boasted, she was prepared for it when it did happen.  
"That's kind of a multiple-answer question." She answered, "He does lots of stuff, he has over a dozen degrees. I'm kind of surprised you didn't know about him from my last name alone. Professor Membrane? He's kind of a big deal in science. Have you been in a hole the last twelve years or something?"  
"Seven." He corrected her dully, not caring if she chose to make fun of him for it or not. He might have had the channel back when he was living with Pepito, but he didn't watch the very high-tech shows. He was more fond of nature and, admittedly, cartoons. "So what does he do?" He repeated.  
"He's a physicist, a chemist, a botanist, a geneticist, a neurosurgeon, an astronomer, a quantum theorist, a microbiologist… Just to name a few." She shrugged. "But I'm not really into much any of that myself. I like video games, and music and movies, and Bloaty's pizza and Mountain Spew, and other such mindless entertainment. My dad is too wrapped up in his science to care. He just lets me do what I want, so if I want to do nothing more productive than sit around playing video games all day and get fat eating pizza, he's just fine with that."  
Todd looked at her critically as she said that. Had she really spent her life just sitting around playing video games and eating pizza? She wasn't skinny, not by the skinny standards of malnourished folk like Todd and Devi anyways, but she wasn't at all as fat as someone with her kind of lifestyle would be. She only had excessive fat in the most envious of places, and everywhere else she was of an average build. It was a shame she was such a bitch. Besides that slightly large head - And, well, maybe it was more her large hair making her head look larger too - She was really quite the beauty.  
"Oh…" He trailed in response, trying to stop staring and answer her. "Uh. That's still cool though. Do you just test the games, or do you actually make them too?" He inquired, trying to bring some civility back into the conversation.  
"I'll have a hand in making them. But any one game takes a large team of people to make." She explained. "Right now I'm still finishing up school, so I'm just testing, but I should be on the designing team in two months." She sounded more excited talking about this than she did about the previous subjects.  
"That's cool. Good luck with that." He mumbled, trailing off as he looked out the window.  
He was ready to drop conversation until they reached his house, but Gaz inquired of him, "Todd?"  
He looked back at her, "Yeah?"  
"I know you have feelings for Devi. You need to drop your interest in her. She's not going to go out with you."  
Those words invoked instant anger from his usually reserved and patient self. "And just why do I need to do that, Gaz? What, do YOU want to be her girlfriend or something? Do I threaten you?" He knew he ought not be acting so threatening himself, or assume something like what he'd just blurted out to a relative stranger, but she pissed him off.  
"No, you idiot." She growled back at him, "Shut the hell up and listen, will you? Devi won't go out with you because she's asexual. Yeah, I asked her out a while back ago, and she turned me down, but she told me it wasn't because I'm a girl. She doesn't want to be romantic or sexual with anyone, male or female. Devi is completely devoted to her art. You're lucky she even wants to be your friend - Frankly, I think she's too cool for you. But she must see something in you, something that will benefit her by benefiting you, so just be grateful she's letting you leech off of her and don't ask or even desire for anything more of her."  
Her words settled on his mind and chest like a ton of bricks. Gaz, he was quickly learning, had a way of doing that with almost everything that came out of her mouth. He could act out in denial and call her a liar, but Todd had a feeling she was telling the truth. He had a feeling Gaz was the kind of person that didn't need to outright lie that often - If she wanted to withhold information from you, she simply did it, and there was little you could do to pry it from her.  
Pepito was like that too, so he could tell. Besides, he could respect that obviously Gaz was close to Devi, closer than him, and waste lock or not, she was trying to do what was best for her now. The rational side of Todd knew that the feelings he held for Devi were too much too soon - Probably just his hormones acting up. He was reluctant to simply let her go, he still felt strongly for her deep within his head. But, above even that, he did truly care enough for Devi to respect her wishes over his own. Though it made his heart ache to do so, he decided it was best to let the romantic feelings for her leave him. It left a dull ache, but after everything he'd been through in his life, emotional pain wasn't that hard to bear anymore.  
"…Okay, I understand. We'll just be friends." He glanced over at Gaz. She was staring at him strangely. "…What?" He sighed in slight irritation. Did she not believe him?  
She turned her eyes back to the road. "…I didn't expect you to be so reasonable about it. I guess Devi might have a good reason for bothering with you after all." She shrugged. "Guess that means I'll be seeing more of you, by association."  
"Guess so." He shrugged. "You don't have to be friends with me if you don't want to, though..."  
"And if I wanted to?" She inquired, causing him to blink and stare over at her for a moment. She didn't say anything more than that though, merely waited for his answer.  
"…Then, you can..." He mumbled back, feeling a little awkward. Did she not like him, or… Not? This was confusing. Best to make her clarify, even if it was embarrassing. "Do you want to?"  
"Don't know yet." She answered honestly. "You seem like a genuine, well-meaning nice guy, which is rare in this world... But you also seem like a moron, and you're definitely weak. I flat-out don't associate with weaklings." She told him very pointedly. "I can abide some slight idiocy though, as long as you maintain that first quality that I like." He blushed a little at that, though he willed it away quickly as she went on. "As long as you tone up those sticks you call your limbs and learn how to use them. So. I'm kind of still deciding." She pulled her car into his empty parking space in front of his garage. "Guess I'll let you know later."  
He rolled his eyes at the insult. "Well, I'll just have to try to contain my excitement..." He replied sarcastically. "Thanks for the ride." He added semi-politely, not waiting for her answer before he got out of the car and walked towards his front door.  
As he entered the dwelling, he flopped down on the couch to rest his nerves for a moment before he needed to get ready for work. Gaz Membrane. Such an ugly name for such an almost pretty girl. But what a bitch. Still, he could also see that beneath it, she was trying to help him too, in her own bitchy way. That was what bothered Todd the most though - Why?  
He thought about calling Pepito, but ultimately he decided not to. He still somewhat feared that if Pepito thought he was in danger on his own, he might try to take Todd away by force to protect him. He hoped his friend wouldn't, but he couldn't rule it out as an option either. So he pushed aside his worries and disappointments, and washed them away in the shower before he set off for work.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Todd started his self-defense classes later that week. It was quite a refreshing change of pace. Usually he just did household chores as a form of exercise, but this was much more stimulating. He'd also found a room on the third floor that had a bunch of Johnny's old knives on display, and bought a dart-board to practice with them.  
Todd found he had a natural inclination towards hand-to-hand combat, though. Lord knew he had a lot of 'nerd rage' in him just aching to get out. He found it greatly relieved his stress to take it out through the kicks and punches, and even though he was one of the smallest males in the class, he soon had a reputation for being the fiercest.  
By the end of the first month Todd found he had progressed twice as fast as another student who enrolled at the same time as him. Another month, and his sensei, who was eager to have a student as passionate as Todd, was willing to start teaching him more advanced techniques, jumps and fancy kicks in the air, advanced blocking, and the like.  
He was just getting back from class one night when he came home to discover that his front door had been broken in. He pulled out one of Johnny's knives that he kept in his backpack for protection before he entered, only to find the former homicidal maniac himself sitting on the 'new' thrift store couch Todd had recently gotten to replace the rancid and ripped one Johnny left behind. He was reading through one of Todd's notebooks from the bookshelf, the ones that Todd wrote his stories in.  
"Oh, Johnny, it's you..." Todd sighed with some small relief. Though he was definitely still on edge, he put the knife back in his backpack.  
"Hey Todd." Johnny replied, not looking up from the notebook, which he seemed engrosed with. "I noticed you put a lock on the front door. You know I don't like locks..." He mentioned, his tone dangerously irritated.  
Todd was a little nervous about that tone, but he was mostly pretty irritated himself about Johnny breaking the lock. "I'm sorry Johnny. But I -had- an extra key I was going to give to you." He informed him with a weary gaze. "It's a dangerous world out there, I can't sleep easy by myself without having my front door locked. So, do you mind if I get it fixed again? If you stick around until I get it fixed, I'll get you a key before you leave."  
Johnny sighed, "I guess that's fine... Looks like you've been fixing a lot of stuff..." He mentioned, finally looking up from the notepad and gesturing around them. The broken window had long since been replaced, and Todd had painted the living room walls a calming periwinkle blue.  
"Is it okay with you? I started working at a bookstore lately and I've been reading books about home improvement, and I think I've got a hand for it. I -was- going to find a new place, but rent is pretty ridiculously expensive. If I forked over what they want for even just a studio apartment every month, I wouldn't have enough left for food. Plus, it just seemed like a shame to let this big, old place rot away. This house really is amazing, Johnny. Who built it?"  
"No idea." Johnny replied with a shrug. "I don't even remember how I got here, or pretty much anything about my life before I came to live here. For all I know, I might have built the damn thing myself. I doubt it, but it's possible..."  
Todd's heart sank momentarily. Despite knowing what horrors he had committed, he felt sorry for Johnny. After all, it wasn't entirely his fault. He was cursed, driven to madness and murder by the curse of the Waste Lock. Then again, he wouldn't have been cursed if he hadn't killed someone first... But then -again-, it might have been an accident or self-defense, like what happened with Devi.  
"Oh... So, whatcha readin'?" Todd inquired curiously after a short pause. He knew it was one of the stories he was working on, which made him both proud and a little embarrassed.  
Johnny closed the notebook and read what Todd had written on the front of it, "Persephone-88. The one about the people in a spaceship looking for a new planet to live on because they fucked up the Earth. It's not a bad read. Did you really write it?" Todd nodded bashfully. "Pretty good work, kid. You gonna get it published someday?"  
Todd blushed and shrugged. "Maybe! If I ever finish it. I still need to work out an ending..."  
"Oh." Johnny sounded disappointed, and put the notebook back in it's shelf. "I'll leave off until you do that, then. I don't wanna go crazy wondering what happens next. But hey, follow me - I got you something."  
Todd's eyebrows shot upwards in curiosity, and then followed Johnny wordlessly to the kitchen, where Johnny had left a thrift-store bag on the table. He reached into the bag and pulled out a pastel yellow bunny-rabbit plush, with baby blue eyes and a lavender bow around its neck, and held it out for Todd to take. "I figured since your lying bastard teddy got burned up, that you might like a replacement..." He explained, looking away a little awkwardly.  
Todd's throat tightened, and he swallowed against it. Slowly, he reached up to take the toy, his fingers brushing against Johnny's as they made the exchange. For a second, he was back in the asylum, back in the doctor's office, being held back as he watched his oldest friend be consumed in the fireplace. Shmee's screams echoed through his mind. Or had they been his own?  
Tears gathered in his eyes and slipped down his cheeks as he stared at the doll, which Johnny of course took notice of. He sighed irritably and ran a hand through his greasy, tangled hair. "Aw shit... I didn't mean to make you sad, Todd..."  
The younger man slowly shook his head. "This was real nice of you, Johnny. Thank you..."  
"But you're crying..." Johnny protested quietly.  
"I just remembered something sad, but that's not your fault. You made me happy." Todd answered truthfully. "Nobody's ever truly cared about me as much as you have..." Pepito cared about him, of course. But it was for his own selfish reasons. What Todd wanted was only ever a matter of importance if Pepito wanted it too.  
Johnny blew out a breath. "Man, that IS sad..." He knew Todd had lived one fucked-up life, but that really made him realize just how much.  
Todd brought the plush in against his chest and hugged his arms around it. It felt strange and unfamiliar, not at all like he remembered Shmee's worn-out body had felt. The last he remembered of Shmee, he was missing a lot of stuffing. This toy was almost new, a donation from yesteryear's Easter, and was much more solid and firm. But it was just as warm as he had remembered Shmee being, and it was much softer than the dirty old bear.  
"I love him..." Todd murmured softly. "Does he have a name?"  
"Uh..." Johnny scratched his head. He knew he ought to indulge the boy, but he wasn't especially clever when it came to names. "Pffft, I dunno, maybe, how about... Chavez...?" He guessed uncertainly. For some reason he couldn't begin to guess at, the name had suddenly just popped into his head.  
Todd looked up at Johnny in surprise. "Chavez? Is that what the 'C' in your name stands for? Is that your last name?" He inquired curiously.  
Johnny was silent for a moment, deep in thought even though he couldn't remember what it was he was trying to think about. "I... Don't know. It just kinda popped into my head. But, forget about it - It's a stupid name for a rabbit. How about Floppy instead?"  
The ears were floppy, so it fit. Todd nodded, "Okay, Floppy it is." He smiled and set the plush toy in the counter. "Hey, come with me, I wanna show you something!" He suddenly grinned and motioned for Johnny to follow him.  
Johnny raised a brow but obeyed, and Todd led him to the bathroom. Most of the changes so far had been gradual, a little bit here and there as Todd could manage it. But the bathroom was the one room that Todd had been determined to make like new again, and he had succeeded in spades. Johnny's eyes went wide with surprise as he entered, taking it all in.  
It was literally the difference between night and day. What he last remembered being a cesspool of filth and blood stains, mildew and grout - All of it had been completely replaced with clean, sparkling whiteness. His old toilet had been so damn ancient the thing had a wooden seat that was liable to leave splinters in your ass. Now there was a shiny porcelain toilet with a cushioned seat. The linoleum floor he remembered, cracked and peeling, was now real tile. The tub where he'd used to give dead bodies acid baths - It was just as new and shiny and white as everything else.  
"Wow..." Johnny had to whistle appreciatively. "Did you really do all this yourself, kid...?"  
Todd grinned and nodded, taking in a deep whiff of the faded scent of pine from the last time he'd polished it clean. "I gotta admit, I'm pretty proud of how this one turned out. And, it was pretty fun too! I think I have a knack for this kind of thing. So, is it okay with you if I remodel a few other rooms?"  
Johnny looked over at Todd's hopeful face. "Sure... I mean, yeah. Hell yeah. You should be proud. You did a really good job. Do whatever you want. You're the one who lives here now, after all."  
"Yeah, but it's still your place. I just wanted to make sure it was alright with you before doing any more. But okay! I'm really gonna make this place look spiffy!"  
Johnny's eye twitched a little. He really hated the word 'spiffy'... But he let it slide, just this once.  
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Johnny stuck around for a couple days after that - Todd offered to pay him back the money he'd left, but Johnny insisted he keep it for the renovations to the house. Still, Todd at least filled Johnny's gas tank so he could get back to his cabin when he wanted to, and ordered in pizza and Chinese food for their dinner.  
When Johnny decided to head back home, Todd followed him out to his car to see him off. "It was nice seeing you again, Johnny. Come back anytime you like - Just, please, use your key." He reminded him pointedly.  
"Yeah, yeah." Johnny rolled his eyes and jingled the new key in front of him. "I'll come see you again in a few more months. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." He paused. "Actually, scratch that - Don't do anything I WOULD do."  
Todd snort-chuckled at that. "Got it... Hey, Johnny?" He inquired before his friend got in the car.  
Johnny looked back at him, "Yeah?"  
Todd almost hesitated, but bravely forged ahead. "Would it be okay if I... Gave you a hug?"  
Johnny grimaced a little and scratched his head. "Ah... I'm not really big on that kinda thing..."  
Todd began to shake his head. "Nevermind, it's okay-"  
But Johnny cut him off, "But, I guess it'll be alright just this once... Just make it quick, okay?" He raised his arms by his side, exposing his torso.  
The younger man's lips stretched into a smile and he nodded silently. He reached in and squeezed his arms around Johnny, resting his head on his chest for barely more than two seconds before releasing him and pulling back.  
Johnny took a breath of relief. It hadn't been a comfortable experience, but it wasn't that bad, either. He trusted Todd and Todd hadn't stepped over any boundaries. He'd made it quick just as Johnny had requested. The physical contact was kind of annoying, but the bond they established and renewed - Johnny had to admit to at least himself, he liked that.  
Across the street though, a fat old man in a greasy wife-beater and sweatpants shouted over at them, "Gross! Get a room, you homos!"  
Johnny's eyes twitched, and Todd glared at the man, awfully tempted to let Johnny do what he was about to do. But the younger man put a steady hand on Johnny's shoulder before he could approach him. "Just let it go, Johnny. He's not worth it."  
Johnny looked back at Todd's hand on his shoulder, and Todd immediately took it back again. He nodded a second later, "Alright... I'll spare his ass this time, for you..."  
Todd smiled gratefully. "Go on, get outta here before he makes you change your mind."  
Johnny nodded back, then got into his car and drove away.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
That night, Todd was eating some leftover pizza for dinner and watching the news. Apparently a new serial killer had begun prowling the streets recently. Unlike 99.9% of the killers out there, this killer only targeted sexual offenders, whom they easily found through the Megan's Law website. They also only killed the worst offenders, child molesters and violent rapists, excluding statutory rape charges and minor offenses.  
Most interesting about the killer though, was that it was being speculated that it was a woman. Strangulation on a few of the victims revealed small, thin fingers. Other victims had been stabbed in the groin and heart, signs of a female serial killer, the person pretending to be an expert on TV had said.  
Todd's chewing slowed for a moment as he considered this information. But then he shrugged, reached for the remote, and turned it to the Animal Channel. Who cared about dead pedophiles and rapists - It was Shark Week!  
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	7. Chapter 7

Cute Little Piggies and Big Bad Wolves  
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A few months later Todd brought home his black belt, almost bursting with pride. He was so excited about it he even called Pepito to tell him. Usually he waited until Pepito called him. But he kind of felt bad about that now - Pepito might have been selfish once, but it seemed like he was really respecting Todd's wishes this time. He never showed up out of the blue, he always asked if he could visit Todd before doing so. And he was being supportive of all Todd's choices. He only expressed pride for his friend when he announced that he was talking self-defense classes, when Todd was sure he'd be a worry-wart about it.  
"So, are there any cute girls in your class, amigo?" The Antichrist inquired slyly.  
Todd blushed from his end of the phone, and hid behind the cell even though Pepito couldn't see him - Except actually, he could. The phone had a hidden camera and a tracking device in it. "Well, yeah! But I'm not really that interested in any of them."  
"Is there anyone you ARE interested in?"  
"There was... But, not anymore. She was really nice and pretty, but she was a little too old for me. Plus we work together. It wouldn't have worked out..."  
"Yeah, those office romances are doomed to fail. And you're a young guy, you're better off with a young girl." Pepito agreed eagerly, then added, "So, are you doing anything later today? I could take you out on the town, introduce you to a few ladies I know...?"  
Todd broke into a sweat, and at the same time, his doorbell rang. "Um, well actually..." He got up and peered out the peephole, and his sweat doubled. The person standing outside his door was none other than Gaz. It was seriously a choice between the frying pan or the fire.  
Gaz was terrifying... But she was also new and exciting, and after kicking his own sensei's butt earlier, Todd felt confident enough to take her on now. "Actually, sorry Pepito, but I do have plans. I'm gonna be hanging out with someone else today. They actually just got here. But maybe some other time."  
Pepito's voice was clearly disappointed. "Oh... Well, okay then, no problemo. Adios amigo."  
"Later, Pepito." Todd replied shortly before hanging up the phone - Which he remembered he really needed to replace soon - And opening the door.  
"H-Hi Gaz..." He stammered nervously at first sight of her.  
"Hi Todd." She answered coolly, though he felt himself flinch at the sound of her voice. He mentally flicked himself - she hadn't even touched him yet! And it didn't seem that she would instantaneously. Maybe.  
He straightened himself up and put his knee-jerk fear behind him, and she went on as if she hadn't noticed. "Are you doing anything tonight?" She asked, seemingly politely.  
Oh good afternoon, Todd, are you free? I've come to kick your ass like I told you I would. Well that was fine with him. He actually felt prepared. Not exactly ready, but prepared. "Nope. I've got the rest of the evening off. What did you have in mind?"  
Instead of answering right away, she began to reach into her purse. It was a strange little accessory for the scary girl, it was in Gothic tones of black, grey, red, pink and purple plaid, but in the very girly shape of a skirt. It seemed even a little scandalous the way it looked, reaching her hand into a skirt. He blushed a little at the thought.  
He tensed up, expecting her to pull out some kind of weapon. But what was in her hand when it pulled away from the naughty-looking purse was not a knife or a gun, but two pieces of paper. Tickets, he realized. "Have you seen the trailers for that new movie, the one about the blue alien people? Want to go see it?"  
Todd blinked owlishly. He had heard about the movie, and had been kind of interested in it. But he was also confused. Was she planning on kicking his ass at the movies? That might cause some collateral damage. Well, the rich girl and her richer daddy would be the ones to pay for it, not him. And hey, maybe he might get to see at least half the movie before he had to fight for his life. So he shrugged, "Sure, thanks. Wait just a minute while I change my clothes." He did so quickly, and then joined her in the front yard, locking the door behind him.  
He got into the passenger seat of her car, buckling up immediately. She observed the safety belt rule herself, and then peeled out of the driveway as if they were escaping a quickly approaching, hellish calamity. She drove at her usual speed, that is, speeding, through the city until they were almost at the movie theater. Then she started to slow down and glanced over at him, "I could go for a bite before the movie, how about you?"  
His paranoid mind raced. What could she be thinking of doing to him? Was she going to literally bite him? Or was she going to beat the crap out of him in this crowded restaurant, get him all covered in food, then make him sit through the movie covered in it? Oh well, he thought to himself, hopefully I'll at least eat half of my food before that happens. And I'll be sure to get something sticky on her too…  
Todd ordered a barbecue pork sandwich, with honey glaze sauce dripping from between the buns. He eyed Gaz suspiciously, who had ordered a brownie with ice cream, which had hot fudge and caramel drizzled all over it. Well, it did look good. If she was going to dump any of it on him, at least he could snack on it at the movies.  
But she didn't dump the brownie on him, and Todd almost kind of regretted that she didn't - It looked really good, and he wished he'd gotten one. She simply ate without speaking, and Todd followed her example at first. But when he was halfway done with his sandwich, he put it down for a moment, washed it down with his root beer, and then asked her, "Hey, have you heard about that new killer on the news? They say they think it's a woman, and she's been targeting sex offenders..."  
She sipped at her cola before answering, "Oh yeah, I did hear of that killer. Pretty crazy world, huh? Personally I think being creative and making things is always a better outlet than destruction, but maybe they've got their reasons. Why they feel they need to waste their time and energy killing people. Can't say the 'victims' don't deserve it this time, though."  
Todd nodded, silently accepting her answer and returning to his sandwich as he thought about it. She was as vague as ever, not admitting to a thing, but Todd couldn't imagine who else the killer was more likely to be. If Gaz was the killer though, Todd had to admit, she at least seemed to have better control of the curse than Johnny had, and only picked the most deserving of victims instead of just assholes or people having a bad day or people she just didn't like. But then again, maybe Johnny had been like that at first, before the madness started to take over him...  
After they finished their meal, they went from the restaurant to the movies, where they sat down, side by side, in silence, and watched the film. Todd managed to be distracted by the graphics a couple times, but for most of the movie he was paranoid about when the girl next to him was going to punch him in the face. The guy three rows up from him was worried about when the girl next to him was going to touch his junk.  
It was a long movie, and near it's end, Todd was beginning to feel like he was actually going to go crazy if Gaz didn't attack him soon. But when the credits began to roll, and she got up with the rest of the crowd to usher out, he found himself confused.  
He followed her out of the theater. Then he followed her to her car. She drove him home, only speaking a few times to remark on what she thought of the movie. They both agreed that it seemed a little preachy, but the graphics were definitely good. Gaz also remarked that she thought it would be cool to be as tall as one of the blue aliens.  
When they reached his house, Todd opened the car door to get out, at once almost beginning to hope that maybe, just maybe, this was meant to just be a social call after all, that for once he, HE, just had an almost normal night out with a friend. A girl. A girl who was a friend.  
That friend who was also a girl got out of the car after him, and followed him to his doorstep. He again began to feel paranoid, but he tried to hide it. He stopped at his door, and turned to her. "Um. Would you like to come in for a while, Gaz?" He asked.  
She seemed to smile at him with her eyes, though her lips did not curve one way or the other. "Thanks, Todd, but I've got something I have to attend to now. But I had a good time tonight." She told him honestly.  
His shoulders dropped with a sudden, sweeping relief. He smiled fully at her. "I did too. Thanks for taking me with you. Next time I'll treat you." He promised.  
Now she did curve her lip, at one side, just a twitch upwards. "Don't sweat it. Use the money to buy some flowers to plant around here." She suggested, motioning towards his yard. He'd encouraged a nice green lawn to grow over the previous barren turf, and there were two simple juniper shrubs on each side of the door, but besides that it was pretty plain.  
He blushed a little. "Oh, heh, yeah, this place has been kind of a fixer-upper." He smiled nervously. "But I'll do that. What kind of flowers should I get?"  
She raised an eyebrow at him, then shrugged. "I dunno. Roses are traditional. Tulips are nice…" She answered simply, subtly.  
She wasn't crazy about flowers, but she'd gotten bouquets for her birthday on a few occasions. Most of the time they were the traditional dozen red roses and baby's breath, sent from her father. But once, her brother had given her a bouquet of magenta and purple tulips. She'd had those professionally dried and pressed, and had them carefully hidden in an old journal.  
"Hydrangeas too, I guess…" Those had been her mother's favorite - Gaz remembered that she had liked how all the little flowers bunched together to make a cluster. She told Gaz, 'It reminded her of home'... But three examples was more than enough. No one else in the world knew she had three favorite kinds of flowers. "Or whatever."  
Todd had only heard of the first two. He filed the name of the third away to look up later at the bookstore. "Cool. Thanks. Well, uh… Have a good night, Gaz." He smiled openly at her.  
She didn't smile back, or even return his goodbye. She turned on her heel and began to walk down the pathway to the sidewalk. Todd raised an eyebrow at her, then shrugged, and began to close the door.  
Just an inch before the door reached it's frame, Todd found himself flying backwards and crashing to the floor as the door was suddenly kicked back into his face. Gaz had of course been the one who kicked it in, both of her feet connected with the door and her body lifted completely off the ground, until gravity brought her back down.  
Todd realized in a split second what was going on and jumped back onto his feet. But Gaz had already gotten to her feet in the split second Todd had needed to realize she was attacking, and by the time he was back up, she had reached him and punched him across the jaw, sending him back down again. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but Todd knew instinctively that he had no time to focus on the pain, and when his eyes opened, they confirmed that. Gaz's fist was pulled back, and she it heading for his fallen form.  
In actuality, Gaz was only going to punch the space on the floor right next to his head and call the rest of the fight off, then tell him to work harder or next time she'd really kick his ass. But to her surprise, Todd rolled out of the way just before she reached him, getting to his feet again in such a smooth, fluid motion, that he even had time to take a swing at Gaz. Not only that, but he very nearly hit her. He would have, if she didn't shove herself back and out of the way at the very last second. Even still, he was so close, his fist grazed past her hair.  
Gaz was so surprised by the close call that the force she propelled herself back with was just a bit too much. She stumbled back two steps before falling onto her back.  
Both of them were stunned at themselves for a second or two. Todd was so shocked that he'd almost hit her that he couldn't think to finish the fight while she was down. And in all honesty, he didn't really want to hit her while she was down, even if she wasn't above that tactic herself.  
But Gaz was never down for long, and she wasn't above using any distraction to overtake her opponent. Swinging herself to her feet, she immediately sprinted towards him again. Defensively, Todd swung a fist at her, but she caught it in her own opposite hand and gripped the fist securely in place. He tried to swing at her with his opposite fist, but she caught that too. Then, in shocking display of dexterity, Gaz lifted one leg up completely vertical between them, securing the curve of her sneaker against his throat. It wasn't enough pressure to choke him out, but enough to still him in place.  
"That wasn't bad." She told him, puffing a little to catch her breath. "Not good. Not yet. But you did better than I expected you to... Nice work, Todd."  
Despite the pain in his jaw and the discomfort of having her foot against his throat, Todd actually enjoyed her praise. 'Nice work'. He couldn't remember his parents or any of his teachers ever telling him that. It felt more gratifying to hear than he'd expected. "Th-Thanks…"  
She cut him off before he could become too proud of himself. "But you need to get your balls up about hitting your opponent. I know you weren't really trying to. I know you didn't really want to. Next time, I'm not giving you that choice." She carefully lowered her leg, then let go of his fists.  
Todd blushed a little, realizing he missed the warmth of her hands. "Next time?"  
"Yes, next time." She confirmed, reaching down her shirt and digging around in her bra for something. Todd blushed watching her… But continued to watch. After a moment, she procured a business card with her name and cell phone number on it. She handed it to Todd, then took another one out for herself. She picked up her purse, which she'd dropped when she kicked the door in, and fished around in it for a pen. She asked Todd his number, then wrote it down once he'd given it. "Okay," She announced once she was done. "I'll give you a call when I figure out where I wanna kick your ass next time."  
Tough talk. The other students at the dojo did it all the time. Todd decided to 'get his balls up' and give it a try. "You know, I might be the one to kick YOUR ass, Gaz." Okay, it wasn't the toughest talk, but Todd's testicles felt more elevated for it.  
Gaz actually stopped and stared at him for an uncomfortable moment, then, she began to chuckle. It was a low, slow sound, as if she was calculating something in her head while she laughed at him. "Todd," She began, smirking at him. "If you ever manage to kick my ass, not only will I admit it… I'll even give you a prize."  
He blinked, about to respond, but she once again turned on her heel without a word and began walking out the door, chuckling all the way to her car.  
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Gaz called Todd up out of the blue one day a couple weeks later, "Hey Todd, have you ever been to a zoo?"  
He blinked, "Once, when I was a really little kid, I think... I think something almost ate me, but I don't remember what it was. A lot of things have tried to eat me." He admitted. And hell, once your own grandfather tries to eat you, well, nothing really shocks you after that.  
"Wanna see what'll try to eat you this time?" She'd asked nonchalantly.  
But Todd actually chuckled at her dark humor. "Sure, why the hell not?"  
So they went, and though Todd didn't remember the lion who'd tried to eat him as a boy, that same lion was still there, and remembered the scent of the morsel that got away. When Todd passed by the cage, the lion stared at him hungrily… Until he noticed the girl standing next to him. Animals usually have an extra sense about which creatures are more dangerous than them. The lion was no exception, and though it was tempted to make a second attempt to catch his long-denied dinner, the aura coming off the female was clear: Back off. He's mine.  
Todd didn't have this extra sense. He snapped a picture of the grumpy-looking old lion and moved on to the next exhibit. He actually found himself having a lot of fun. He was glad he'd brought lots of extra film, because the zoo had expanded since the last time he'd visited it. And though he was busy taking pictures, he kept his attention on Gaz too. But not to make sure she wouldn't suddenly throw him into the crocodile tank. He wanted to see which animals she liked best. He'd heard that told a lot about a person.  
He noticed she paid the most attention to the exhibits where guests were allowed to touch the animals. She showed great interest in the lizards, amphibians and snakes. She indulged in the opportunity to feel their smooth, scaly, and occasionally slimy skin. And surprisingly, though most of the larger animals seemed to shy away when she was near them, the little cold-blooded creatures seemed to enjoy her slow, careful petting.  
There was one bright green frog that was so enamored by how she stroked underneath his chin that when she pulled her hand away, he fell forwards. Todd couldn't help but laugh at that, until Gaz playfully reached over and wiped the frog's slime on his cheek, smirking as he cried out, "Eeew!" and wiped it off on his shirt, grinning despite the grossness.  
She didn't favor only the cold-blooded creatures, though. When they came to the domestic petting zoo, there was a big, fat sow with a litter of piglets. Gaz enjoyed rubbing the mother sow's belly, and petting her piglets, which none of them had any problem with. She even picked one pink piglet up, and though it squealed as she lifted it, once it was secure in her arms, it's squeals became calming snorts.  
"I like pigs." She remarked quietly, but Todd was paying close attention, and filed the information away. It was a strange choice for the scary girl, but then again, no one would suspect that Johnny liked bunny-rabbits.  
She went on, "They have a bad rap, but they're actually really smart, clean and affectionate. I find it hypocritical how negatively human beings view pigs, considering how much DNA they have in common. It's as plain as the noses on our faces." To demonstrate, she reached out with her index finger and poked Todd's nose, turning it upward like a pig's snout. He smiled at the playful touch, swatting her hand away gently. She smiled a little smile back at him.  
"So if you like pigs," He reasoned, "And pigs are like people, you must like people too, right?"  
She gazed at him for a moment, intently, studying him. Finally after a few moments she murmured, "I like some people… And most of the others aren't all bad."  
"Do you like me?" He found himself blurting out, immediately blushing afterward when he realized just what he'd said. He quickly followed, "I mean, it's just, well, you… You've been so nice to me…"  
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You think I'm nice? Well then again, you did have a rough childhood..."  
He snorted in amusement. "Um. Yeah. Anyways," He cleared his throat. "But… You are. I really appreciate everything you've been doing for me, taking me out to do all this fun stuff, and even for kicking my ass. I know you're doing it to make me stronger, and I have been getting stronger because of it. And, I don't mean to be ungrateful or to question your motives, but… Well, why?"  
She stared at him intensely for a moment, a long moment. She turned away from him, putting the piglet back down into it's litter, then she turned back around, and poked him again on the nose. "Maybe I think you're a cute little piggy."  
Todd's eyes went wide, and his cheeks went red. "H-Huh?" Was she serious? He actually kind of hoped so. He kind of liked the idea that she thought he was cute. That a girl he thought was cute, might think he was cute too.  
But she didn't confirm her last statement. Instead her face took on a more serious expression. "…It's because you remind me of my brother."  
He blinked at that. Since they seemed to be in a temporary comfort zone, Todd ventured to ask, "What about me is like your brother?"  
"A lot." She answered simply at first, then began to clarify, reciting a few things he'd mentioned to her by text. "You both were the outcasts in school, even though you were both smarter than almost everyone else in your classes. You both have that naïve male chivalry that makes you want to protect girls and other people in general, whether or not you're actually fully capable of that." She smirked at him, and he stuck his tongue out at her. "You both seem to have a lot of run-ins with the paranormal, though unlike you, my brother actually liked that kind of thing. But then, unlike him, you probably never worried the people who loved you, going out into the middle of the night to chase ghosts or vampires or aliens."  
But then again, Gaz had never actually told her brother she loved him, so he couldn't have known... She secretly regretted that.  
"The ghosts and aliens usually came to ME, though. I didn't go chasing them." He paused, "And, well, nobody really loved me when I was a kid, so I never worried anybody when I went missing for a few days."  
She gave him a strange look at that. A look that was a bit weirded out, but mostly worried. "…That's probably what he always thought. My brother. I was…" The look of worry transformed her face into a distinct look of guilt and sadness. The kind of guilt and sadness one tries to hold in, but cannot. "I was mean to him as a kid. For some reason, I felt I always had to be, to keep him tough. But maybe I was too hard on him sometimes…" She snorted in contempt at herself. She knew full well why she had to be mean to Dib, she'd known since she was a very young child... She regretted it anyways. "Of course, I didn't think that until he was gone…"  
Seeing this as an opportunity, Todd carefully inquired, "What… Happened to him?"  
She turned her back to him, but didn't try to go anywhere. She simply couldn't face him. "I told you. He disappeared… He went out to chase an alien one night, and never came back."  
Todd could tell that wasn't the whole story, but he was seriously starting to doubt Gaz had murdered her brother outright, if she really even killed him at all - If she had, it was probably an accident...  
He didn't pressure her to go on, but he carefully put a hand on her shoulder, to encourage her, to let her know that he wasn't judging her.  
After a moment, she began to speak again. "I said some stuff to him before he left that night... Cruel stuff. Stuff I regret. Stuff I didn't really mean…" Lightly, she raised one hand up and placed it over his hand on her shoulder. "You know, you even look like him. If you put on some coke-bottle glasses and spiked your hair up like a porcupine on crack, you'd be like twins."  
He laughed a little, then sobered back up. "What was your brother's name?" He finally asked, quietly.  
She snorted a quiet little laugh herself. "Dib Membrane."  
"…Your dad sure had weird taste in names." He mentioned apologetically.  
"Dad didn't name us. Our mom did." She replied, then, "I miss her too…"  
It was the first time Gaz had ever mentioned her mother. "Oh yeah? What was she like?"  
"I…" She paused a moment. "I never really knew that much about her. She went away when me and Dib were still little, but… I still miss her."  
Again Todd knew she wasn't telling the whole story, could somehow sense certain things about the girl, which he attributed to their bond as fellows of similar fates. But he didn't press her for any more details than she was comfortable giving. "I'm sorry, Gaz. I'm sorry you lost the ones you loved."  
At that, she stiffened a little. She shrugged off his hand, and for a moment Todd was almost worried he'd said something wrong. But then she replied, "We're all doomed to lose the people we love. The only thing we can do about it is find new people to love." She kneeled down, and began petting the pigs again, distancing Todd from the pain she was feeling inside.  
But Todd didn't want that. When someone you care about is in pain, you want to soothe it away. He kneeled down next to her, and rested his head lightly next to hers. "I think that's good advice, and I think you should take it."  
She exhaled a slow breath. Then she rested her head against his. "Maybe I will..."  
After that they left the zoo, got dinner, and then Gaz drove him back home. As he got out of the car, he noticed Gaz wasn't following him this time. She hadn't even turned the car off.  
He walked over to the driver's window. "Hey, aren't you going to come inside and kick my ass?" He asked, almost hopeful.  
But she shook her head. "I don't feel like kicking your ass today. Next time, though." She held out her pinky to promise.  
He hooked his pinky in hers. "I'm holding you to it." Truth be told, though he'd been afraid of the girl at first, he was actually disappointed. He was eager to test himself against her skills again, and he just liked her company.  
"Don't worry, I won't let you get… soft." She assured him with a strange smirk as she said it, and with a devilish look in her eyes that made him blush. Then she sped off like a Fury into the night.  
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When Gaz got back home that night, she went back to Devi's room to see in her roommate was in. She was, and she was sitting by her easel, painting a red moon above a red river. She was surrounded by buckets and buckets of red paint. She was her normal self during the day and when at work, but lately she'd been going out for hours after dark, and drawing strange red paintings until it was too late for her to ignore sleep any more.  
Devi didn't glance up from her painting, but she apparently sensed Gaz's presence, and she asked her, "How was your night?"  
"Good." Gaz answered simply. "Todd's a real gentleman. I think I might kinda like him. Nice painting, by the way."  
"It's shit." Devi growled under her breath.  
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. If that's the case, can I have it? I like it."  
Devi sighed, tore the page down and handed it over. "Sure, whatever."  
"Thanks." Gaz answered, studying it appreciatively. "Did you remember to eat something today?"  
Devi blinked. "Damn, I think I forgot..."  
"There's some leftover lasagna in the fridge, go for it." The younger woman informed her.  
Devi gave her a heartfelt smile. "Thanks, Gaz, I'll wolf it down - You know I cant cook for shit, but I love anything you make. I'm really glad we met and became friends."  
"Yeah, ditto Devi. I'm going to bed now. Night."  
Gaz took the painting with her to her room... And then climbed out of the window. She walked all the way to Todd's house. It was nearly three AM when she got there. Todd was sleeping, and she was as silent as a mouse as she retrieved the spare key hidden in the juniper bush, opened the door, and ascended all the stairs down to the bottom level. Once there, she laid the painting on the floor.  
"Hello again, creepy thing in Todd's creepy house. I've come to give you your midnight snack..."  
The darkness beneath growled at her. It wanted to rip her apart but it knew it couldn't. It knew she was not as benevolent as she was pretending to be. She had her own selfish reasons for doing these things...  
Gaz smirked, silently confirming the demon's suspicions, and then stole away into the night, locking Todd's door behind her and pretending she was never there.  
Fleurety, the only witness, ran to find her master and relay the events to him.  
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Johnny like the tranquility of the forest. He liked his simple cabin, he liked the silence and he liked the natural sounds of the wind and the animals. The guy who owned it first was a real son of a bitch - He liked to bring women to this cabin and rape and kill them. Johnny had put a stop to that the moment he found out about it, and took over the cabin once the original owner was dead. His last terrified victim had begged for death, and Johnny had delivered it to her. The poor dear was so severely injured by the time Johnny got to her that it was the only kind thing that could be done.  
After he'd gotten back from visiting Todd, he'd finally gotten around to burying the bodies, and picked up the place a little too. There was other rotting bits of animals lying around that Johnny never noticed until he was away from the smell for a while.  
Johnny liked to spend his time staring into space, sometimes he even liked to sleep - The prospect used to terrify him, but lately he'd been enjoying dreamless slumbers. On some rare occasions he might have a dream, and though he usually forgot them, they disturbed him greatly. He usually declined to sleep a few days after having one.  
On some even rarer occasions, he liked to break the calm, or was forced to, by finding a wild beast to kill or being challenged by one. There was a pack of wolves that had stalked him a few times before, and they had always managed to bite and claw him to shreds before he went wild on them in return, and sent them yelping back into the woods. He liked feeling the pain , the bleeding wounds, and taking the time to heal from them.  
One night, he fell asleep. At first it was dreamless, and then he found himself as a snake, slithering along the forest floor. Then a mongoose came along and tried to kill him, shaking him around in it's mouth like a ragdoll.  
The shaking sensation turned into a falling-dream, and he found himself crashing into water. Except, it was red in color, and thick - Blood.  
He came across a piece of driftwood to cling to, and he gazed up at the moon, which at first was as red as the water. But then a woman's features reflected off the face of the moon - And not just any woman. It was -her-. The 'one that got away'...  
He woke up with a gasp, panting, with sweat rolling down his face. He wiped it away from his brow. It was just sweat, but he felt as if he was covered in filthy, sticky blood again.  
"...I'm gonna go jump in the river." He decided aloud. The freezing waters would help him feel numb again.  
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	8. Chapter 8

Dangerous Liaisons  
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Gaz came to Todd's house every night, but she let Todd know she was there only about once a week. One day she came to call, but unlike all of her previous visits, she didn't give him any warning or time to prepare himself mentally. The second he opened the door she attacked, giving him a- strong, one-legged, 'This is Sparta' kick to the chest.  
He fell onto his backside, and immediately jumped back up, but realized as soon as he did so that it was a mistake. Gaz had raised her leg straight up to her head (Gods, she was limber) and was ready to bring it crashing down on his head. There was no time to jump out of the way, although the fear in his gut told him to do so, the rationality in his brain reminded him that there was only one defensive move he could attempt. All this in the course of one second. Todd listened to his brain over the fear in his gut, and raised both his hands above his head, catching her foot just before it knocked him right the hell out in a second flat.  
Gaz gasped, thrown off by his actions. She wobbled on her one foot while trying to wrench her leg back from him. He took advantage of the situation, just as she'd taught him to, and swept his right foot under hers, knocking her to the ground, with her foot still in his hand. He grabbed her by the back of her knee with his other hand, and wrenched her around onto her stomach.  
Quickly, before he lost his nerve, he climbed onto her, using his legs to pin hers down and his arms to keep her hands held above her head, and his weight, just barely more than hers, to keep her down. She struggled violently, almost knocking Todd off three times.  
But he held on tight, and focused on counting one number at a time despite the distractions. When the triumphant "Ten!" came out of his mouth, he finally relaxed, and Gaz threw him off of her and got to her knees next to him, looking at him with an expression on her face that looked like a mixture of fury and mortification.  
But it quickly softened. She took a breath and sighed it out, and then even smiled a little smile. "…Congratulations, Todd." She allowed him, moving to sit down Indian style.  
He panted hard, bringing himself to sit down for a rest too. He could hardly believe it at first. He'd finally caught up to Gaz's level. It was something he'd been aspiring to, and now that he'd reached it, he was basking in the feeling of glory. It was this achievement, and not the prize that Gaz had mentioned, that he had looked most forward to, and so he actually completely forgot about it altogether.  
Gaz hadn't. "Alright. So. Your prize…"  
Mentioning it caused him to remember. He looked up at her curiously.  
She seemed to think for a moment or two, then spoke up again, "I'll give you a choice between two prizes. But you can only have one. Ok?"  
He was interested. "Ok, that's fair. What's the choices?"  
She smirked at him. "Choice A - You can have my car."  
Todd's eyes went as wide as saucers in an instant. "W-What?" He sputtered in disbelief. "Are you serious? You can't be serious." He added immediately, inclined to disbelieve her. She just had to be fucking with him.  
She took his challenge. "I'm dead serious. They just came out with a newer model, so I feel obsolete driving this dinosaur." To prove it, she took the key, hardly anything archaic anyways when it was actually an electronic locking system, out of her pocket, and tossed it to him. She let him look at it in wonder for a moment, let him get good and tempted, not that he hadn't been from the second she mentioned it. Then she added, voice low to make him listen, "Or, choice B… You can kiss me."  
His huge eyes snapped up from the key in his hands, somehow managing to get even bigger. She'd put on an unreadable poker face, watching him intently with nothing but neutrality to her last remark. But he slowly started to smile a little. So that was the catch. He raised an eyebrow at her, "…On the lips?"  
She smirked back and slowly nodded.  
He tossed the key back to her, immediately following it's path, kneeling in front of Gaz, and leaning in a bit - Enough to put his lips just into her personal space. He was nervous. But he was also irresistibly curious, and in between those two emotions there was something else, something warm and wanting, drawing him to the girl despite everything his logic already knew about her. "…I'll take choice B." He finally whispered, thanking the heavens that he'd had a coincidentally breath-freshening cup of peppermint tea before she came over.  
She leaned in until she was just an inch from his face. "…Then go ahead and take it." She whispered back.  
He did it before the fear in him could make him doubt the sincerity of the moment, he didn't even give himself the time to ponder the possibility that this might be the moment of weakness she'd been leading him to…  
And that was a good thing too - Because it wasn't. The young woman melted into his simple kiss as fully as he did, the both of them wondering how it could feel so wonderful. The physical feeling, the softness of virgin lips (the inner edges of Todd's were slightly chapped, but Gaz had recently applied fancy Bee's Butts lip balm to hers) pressing to one another's, was heavenly alone, but the intimacy of the feelings being shared was what made it truly blissful.  
Todd had always yearned for this, but he had always considered himself as hopeless with females as any male could be. That he'd actually reached this important moment, with a girl he'd been suspecting he might like, like this - The only fear in his present mind was that it might all be a dream, despite already having reality beaten into him only a few minutes ago. He kept his eyes closed during the kiss, afraid of awakening alone if he dared open them.  
On Gaz's behalf, she'd never yearned for anything like this before. She'd found most men to be as good as wild hogs, or like some other animal's negative qualities, like a dog or a rat. But Todd, though those newly-toned limbs of his looked almost like a frog's before, had shaped up nicely. He was now as close to her vision of an ideal male that she'd ever bothered thinking of. True, there was something a bit like an Electra complex about her choice, but most of the males on the planet were complete idiots, and Gaz valued intelligence, even if she saw fit not to let on just how intelligent she was.  
But intelligent or not, powerful and independent or not, there were just some things every living being craves from time to time. Gaz had known from the moment she met Todd that he was different. A good kind of different, and she wanted it cultivated, not destroyed, which Todd would doubtlessly be if he didn't learn how to shed his fear and fight. It had taken some time, but Gaz was pleased with the results. She kept her eyes just slightly slit open, watching the boy's blissful face kissing hers.  
Todd didn't take away his lips immediately, wanting to draw out the moment as long as he could, and wait until she decided to end the kiss first. But a few seconds dragged on and she made no move, so Todd, cautiously, slowly, began to reach up, settling his hands on her shoulders. The act was simple, testing how far he could go by the smallest increment.  
Gaz rolled her eyes discreetly, then proceeded to wrap her arms around Todd's waist like ivy, turning her head into the kiss and licking the chapped edges of his lips. Todd gasped at the sensation, and Gaz took advantage of it, darting her tongue just past his lips, licking over his teeth and the tip of his tongue. His response was immediate, wrapping his arms fully around her, his tongue reached out to hers, licking her palate, tasting something like cola. It mixed a bit oddly with the peppermint on his breath, but neither of them minded enough to pull away from the other except for when they needed air.  
But Gaz suddenly did pull away, and forced Todd to look her in the eyes by holding his chin straight in one hand. "Wanna know what you gotta do to get to second base?"  
His half-drooped eyes widened to fullness. He nodded mutely, lips slowly stretching into a grin at the thought of a new challenge and the enticing reward that went with it.  
She smirked and leaned in until her lips were right next to his ear. "You have to… Come within 100 points of all my high scores on Vampire Piggies: The Porkening, Zombietropolis, Space Battles and Rock Band."  
He blinked owlishly, "Huh?" He hadn't been expecting that...  
She began to explain, first putting up one finger, her index, to indicate the first point. "Video games are a good way to test not only dexterity, but intelligence. The ones I picked out indicated the areas of intelligence most important to me. Vampire Piggies is full of demons and mystical creatures. Things that go bump in the night, that you were likely visited as a child as were I and my brother. Get used to them, Todd. I have a feeling we're some kind of people that just attracts things like that."  
Todd's heart skipped a beat as her heard that. So Gaz didn't know about their circumstances, but she could feel them, and had many similar experiences as he had. Interesting. It made Todd feel somewhat comforted having someone to share this craziness with, besides Johnny who was already crazy. He still wasn't totally sure about Gaz, but overall he got the feeling that she wasn't any crazier than most women were in general.  
She put up the second, middle finger. "Zombietropolis is kind of similar to Vampire Piggies in that it's full of zombies and you have to destroy them, and they're really scary. By the way, if you really wanna man up, don't be a chicken and play those two in the dark." He nodded, knowing she would probably check to make sure he did so.  
She went on, putting up the third, ring finger. "Space Battles is a sci-fi shooter. I want you to get really good aim. And finally, as for Rock Band," She put up her pinkie. "That's mostly just to test out your taste in music, but you also have to play the guitar to match the instructions on the screen. I've got a damn high score on everything, but Rock Band is different than the other games. It will make your fingers super dexterous. You get me, Todd?" She suddenly reached out and pushed his chest, knocking him over onto his back. She then climbed on top of him and leaned her face down close to his, to make it as obvious as she could. "I want you to get super -dexterous-…"  
He gulped and nodded, though inwardly groaning at how long it would take him to get that far. Gaz was a video game tester for crying out loud! But then she reached down and drew him into another long, slow, passionate kiss, and he felt instantly invigorated to meet her challenge and do it as quick as humanly possible.  
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Gaz brought the video games over the next day, and Todd started on them immediately while Gaz took it upon herself to make them a pork roast and potatoes for dinner, which soon filled up the top level of the house with a delicious smell.  
She didn't mind that he was still playing when she called him to dinner, since he took the time to also compliment her, "Wow, this is great! Hey by the way, who made those eggs that first morning after we met, you or Devi? Those were the best eggs I've ever had!" Rosemary made good eggs but they were nowhere as fluffy as those had been, and Gaz had used some strange kind of spice in it where Rosemary just went with salt and pepper. Todd also remembered his mother making eggs for him on a few rare occasions, and they had always been bland and usually burned.  
"I did." Gaz answered, blandly at first.  
"How'd you make them taste so good? How'd you make THIS taste so good?" He prodded her on, glancing back and forth from his console screen and his plate in amazement.  
"You perform better in ALL areas of life when you care about your nutrition." She responded very matter-of-fact-ly. "I use only the best ingredients to start with, and then I enhance their flavors with more spices and only minimal salt that, in turn, adds more nutrients to the dish. The eggs were made with a dash of milk and butter in the egg mixture, and a pinch of dill weed for flavor. Sometimes I use pepper, but dill gives it a hint of pickle-flavor, which I prefer."  
Todd politely gulped down his chewed mouthful before replying, "Oh hey yeah, that's what it tasted like, a dill pickle! That's been bugging me for a while."  
Gaz went on, "The roast I marinated in a mixture made of apple juice, lemon juice, orange zest, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, oregano, pepper and just a -pinch- of kosher salt."  
Todd stared at her for a minute, which caused him to take a few hits from the enemy pigsuckers. "Wow. Did you, like, go to school for that too...?"  
"I whizzed through a few Cordon Bleu classes, yeah." She shrugged. "But most of it is just giving a crap about what you eat. Devi doesn't care about anything but her art. And she's been in a bit of a stump lately, which is depressing her - By the way, she might quit her job at the bookstore soon. I offered to foot her half of the rent - I did it a while ago too, but she insisted she pull her own weight. But since her art has been suffering lately, I convinced her that she could use the extra time that works takes out of her schedule to focus on staying home and practicing like I know she wants to. Devi is a truly amazing artist - I want her to be happy, and she's only truly happy with her art. But left to her own devices, she'd try to live off of pizza and spaghettios, and that's fine when you're a dumb kid, but that kind of diet will make you feel real old, real fast."  
Todd had forgotten about the game during her mini-speech, and the pigsuckers managed to kill his character. "Shit," He whispered to both himself and a little to her, restarting the game as he thought about what she'd said. "That's... Really generous of you, Gaz. You and Devi really are close. I'm happy for both of you guys. I can kinda understand Devi, though. Sometimes I get so caught up with my writing, hours go by without me realizing it! And then I'm so tired I usually end up just making something quick like spaghettios or ramen noodles..."  
"Ugh. And you will end such practices, Todd Casil." Gaz demanded sternly, narrowing her eyes at him. "For I am refusing to make out with you again until you make something I find palatable."  
Todd's face fell at first, but then he took a steely breath, and resolved to beat this challenge too, and earn back his kissing privileges. "Alright, I'll make something so good it'll make your tongue wanna jump out of your mouth and face-hug me."  
She gave him an odd look, but her lips were quirked upwards. "We'll see... But as for now, there's other things I'd like to discuss tonight."  
"Sure." Todd replied right away, showing he was listening even though he'd started playing his game again.  
Gaz continued, "First of all, there's something you should know about me - Several somethings actually, just as I'm sure there's several things I should know about you too. But just to start, since you now know that I show romantic interest in you, you should know what that entails. I've never had a romantic relationship before, and I'm not approaching this one as some love-struck, hormone-driven girl. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But, to be honest with you Todd, my mentality towards the hormones that are compelling me to want to bond and possibly mate with you is more insect-brained. Like the weevil female who fears to be stabbed by her mate, but also like the mantis who eats the head of hers."  
Again, Todd was distracted from his game at that. Gaz was smirking as she continued without his input. "We both have something we could stand to gain or lose by allowing each other this much trust. Obviously I would not have even told you as much as I already have if I didn't trust you. You're a caring soul, Todd - I can see that in you. But I can see much more than that... You see, though you finally managed to best me in physical strength, in a -real- fight against ALL my powers, you wouldn't stand a chance. And one of my powers is what you would call a sort of clairvoyance or precognition."  
"You see the future...?" Todd guessed at what she meant.  
"I see what could be the future, I see what is the present and I see what was the past." She answered very seriously. "I have done this since I was just a baby, and I have lived my life trying to make the best use of this power I could. I can also summon horrible demons and other dark forces from various dimensions and other planes of existence if I want to. Also, I can transform chaos into order. I can purify the most putrid substances that can be conceived of. I could turn poison into pure water, and water into wine."  
Todd's character died again. He sighed, finally turning the game off and putting it down now. "Are you serious...?"  
She smirked at him, looking like a devious cat about to pounce on a mouse. Instead of answering verbally, she reached over and dabbed her finger at the surface of the water she'd provided him to drink. It instantly turned burgundy in color. Todd tasted it to make sure it wasn't some kind of food dye trick, but not only was it really wine, it was a fine, aged wine. She tapped the water again and it went clear, as if the color had been sapped into her finger. He took another sip. It was the purest water he'd ever tasted.  
"Wow..." He murmured with wide eyes as he set the glass down. "So... Why on Earth would someone as powerful as you be interested in someone like me...?"  
Gaz sipped at her own water, "Why, indeed... I think I'll leave you to figure that out for yourself. Suffice to say, I do have reasons, selfish reasons even. But I like you for your personality too, if you're worried about that."  
"I was a little bit..." Todd admitted. "To be honest though, I kinda knew you were different from other girls from the first moment I saw you..."  
Gaz outright grinned now, flashing her canine teeth. "I bet you did."  
Todd went on a little nervously, "But... I still like you for who you are too. As for -what- you are and the things you can do - I guess I don't mind that either, as long as you're not using your powers to hurt anyone who doesn't really deserve it..."  
She nodded slowly. "That sounds perfectly reasonable, Todd. As for me, I'm a simple Scorpio, so there's only two things I really want from you or anyone else I count as a friend: Honesty, and loyalty. You don't have to tell me every secret you have tonight, but if you complete all my challenges and become the kind of man I'm sure you're capable of being, I expect us to have no secrets between us by then."  
"That sounds fair..." Todd returned slowly. "So, is there anything else you want to know about me tonight?"  
"Not tonight." She answered, finally returning to her meal before it got cold. "What about you?"  
There were actually a few questions he could come up with, but he decided to get his thoughts in order first. So instead he replied, "Just one - How come you served orange slices with the roast?" It seemed like such an odd combination to Todd.  
"They're the ones I zested for the marinade. It's called a garnish."  
"Oh..." Todd grinned with a sudden idea, biting into the wedge of orange flesh, so that the peel covered his teeth and made a comical smile. He figured if there was one thing Gaz ought to know, it was what a dork he could randomly be sometimes.  
She snorted out a short laugh before covering her mouth to hide the smile. "My stupid brother used to do stuff like that when we were kids..." She'd never smiled or laughed aloud when he used to do it, but it -was- kinda funny...  
Todd blushed and smiled as he chewed the orange piece. After he swallowed, something came to him, "Oh, by the way, tell me what you think of these-"  
He got up and headed over to the counter, taking out a Garden catalog from one of the drawers, opening it to the middle and handing it to her. "Roses and tulips were a little too expensive to fill up the yard, by are these the Hydrangeas you mentioned? I ordered some in blue and purple."  
"Yeah, that's it. So you liked the hydrangeas, huh..." She murmured back, glancing over the familiar flowers and the old memories they brought up in her.  
"Yeah, I do. I like how all the little flowers come together in a cluster like that. It's like a family of flowers!"  
"A family, huh..." She handed the catalog back to him. "That's cute."  
"I always wanted a family..." He blurted out, then blushed thinking about what that must have sounded like. "Uh-I mean, not like that-Well, kinda like that, BUT, not for a LONG while, I just-" He stopped himself and took a breath. "My parents, weren't the greatest..."  
"I get what you mean." Gaz replied understandingly. "Neither were mine. My mom split when we were young, and my dad is obsessed with his work. My brother and I pretty much raised ourselves. Kinda makes you wish you could prove you could do better than they did."  
"Yeah, but that's a terrible reason to have a kid." Todd rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "What I meant was - Not having people who love you in your life, that's no reason to bring someone else into the world hoping they'll love you instead..."  
"True. But there's no really -good- reason to have a kid, either. It all comes down to narcissism and necessity." She pointed out fairly.  
"I guess so... But I still think if you want a kid, you ought to be able to provide for it." Lord knows Todd had stayed up more nights than he cared to admit, wishing he wasn't such a burden on his father. "I'd like to have my own family someday, but I'm nowhere near that point in my life. I'm barely more than a kid myself." Though he did have a birthday coming up soon. Man, had he really been living here for almost a year...?  
"I agree... Anyways though, I ought to be going now. Same time next week, Todd?"  
"Oh, yeah, sure!" He smiled, chasing away the past. "I'll, uh, go ahead and show you out."  
Gaz rolled her eyes, "What a gentleman~"  
When they got to the front door, Gaz turned and held out her hand. Curiously, Todd held his out too, and to his shock, she dropped the key to her car into it, and nonchalantly told him, "Go ahead and keep it after all. I went ahead and got that newer one anyways."  
He gaped at the little square contraption. "Gaz, I can't just-"  
She kissed him on the cheek to shut him up. "You can, and you will, and that's all there is to it. Just go get your license and get it registered, simple as that. Goodnight, Todd."  
Todd stared after her as she sashayed away to the brand new car that had just pulled up to the curb, tipped the man who brought it, and drove away. He slowly closed the door behind him, still staring at the key in his hand for a few seconds until the sound of his cell phone going off snapped him out of it. It was the phone Pepito had given him, so he knew that was the only person it could be - He'd just gotten a new cell, and had still been meaning to give the old one back.  
Todd answered the phone, "Hey Pepi-" He began, but Pepito immediately cut him off.  
"Listen, amigo. We REALLY need to talk about that new girlfriend of yours."  
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	9. Chapter 9

A Sudden Shift in Reality  
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Todd's response was silence at first, and then he groaned, "Pepito, are you fucking serious right now..."  
"Very serious, Todd. That girl is trouble. I-"  
"I -meant-, are you seriously -stalking- me? I just barely started this romance two days ago! You've been SPYING on me!"  
"Oh. That." Pepito rolled his eyes from his side of the line. "Trust me Todd, you're gonna be glad I did when you hear what I have to say! Please, amigo. Just hear me out on this before you get mad at me, okay?"  
It was a little late for that, but Todd sighed away his frustration and answered as calmly as he could, "Alright Pepito, I'll hear you out. But this better be good."  
"Can we meet up to talk, old friend? I haven't seen you in so long. I... I've missed you..."  
Todd blinked in surprise. Pepito didn't have any problem expressing his many strong opinions, but talking about his -feelings- was a much rarer occurrence. Todd actually felt kind of guilty suddenly - Perhaps he had been too harsh on Pepito? Maybe his old friend had truly meant well all along, but was just awkward about expressing it? He supposed he could at least hear him out, and he did have to meet him in person to give back his phone...  
"Well... Alright, do you want to meet up tomorrow morning at the park?"  
Pepito hesitated, "Are you sure you can't make time tonight...?"  
Todd glared freely since the spoiled Prince of Darkness couldn't see it. "It's kinda late now, Pepito. I'm pretty tired..."  
"Okay, okay. Tomorrow is fine." Pepito amended quickly, then joked, "Wouldn't want you to miss out on your beauty sleep."  
Todd snorted out a chuckle without meaning to, "Okay then. See you tomorrow..."  
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Todd was waiting on a bench in the park at 9 AM sharp the next morning. Pepito was four minutes late, but he arrived with a couple of mocha lattes for them both - Todd's iced and his own piping hot - And apologized for his tardiness.  
It was obviously a show, but Todd couldn't fault him for trying to be nice to him. Plus he'd gotten him extra whipped cream on his latte. But Todd made sure to hand him his old phone as he reached to take the drink too, as well as a slip of paper. "Thanks, and here - I got my own phone now. The paper has my new number written on it. You can call me - As long as you're not planning on having your generals screen everything I say to see if I'm lying?"  
Pepito sat down next to him on the bench. "Amigo, I'm sorry. I just worry so badly about you. You can't say I don't have plenty of legitimate reasons to, and it seems like you're giving me more reasons all the time..."  
"I suppose that means there's MORE things you're hiding from me, then?"  
"...Yes." The Prince quietly admitted. "And I'm sorry for it, Todd, but I swear, everything I've ever done, I've done it to try and PROTECT you! But you're right," He added quickly as Todd's began to give him a look of annoyance. "It wasn't right of me to hide things from you either. And I won't anymore. It's just, after everything you went through as a child, I just wanted to give you everything you never had... I did what I thought would make you happy and keep you safe. I'm sorry I messed up and made you feel stifled instead. I can see now, you've grown to be a lot stronger than I thought you were."  
"So, no more secrets?" Todd ventured with a small smile of appreciation.  
Pepito nodded. "Here's the whole truth, Todd: I don't know for sure who it is, but a new Waste Lock has been chosen. And I'm almost sure it's that girl you've been seeing, Gaz -There's a new serial killer out there, the news has been reporting on it. They think it's a woman, and I'm almost positive that it's her. It's GOT to be her."  
"I suspected she might be, honestly." Todd replied, deep in thought as he sipped his cold caffeine. "I knew from the moment I saw her that she was a Waste Lock Candidate, like me. But if it is her, and we have no proof that it even is, she's doing a hell of a better job with it than Johnny was. All the people who have been killed so far have been pedophiles and rapists that should have been rotting in jail forever, but instead are walking free to hurt other people. If those are the only people she's killing, she's doing a great service to the world."  
"Yeah, IF those are the ONLY people she's killing! Johnny killed mostly a lot of assholes, too! But even if she WAS able to keep a hold on her mind for a while, and took out her homidical urges on scumbags at first, I guarantee you Todd, it WON'T last! The curse WILL -spread-, the Waste Lock WILL begin to lose their memories and their sanity, and when they do, innocent people can and WILL be killed too!"  
"And that's IF she's even the one doing the killing!" Todd insisted. Gaz was mysterious and clearly very powerful, and if she could see the future like she claimed, surely she would avoid her terrible curse? He had doubted her once, but now he wanted much more to believe in her.  
Pepito sighed harshly. "Todd... Did you know she's been been sneaking into your house - Correction, Johnny the Waste Lock's old house - Late at night after you're asleep? That she's been bringing paintings drawn with human blood and leaving them in the deepest level of your house? Did I mention the Waste Lock needs to leave blood offerings to the Void-world and it's demons?"  
Todd's eyes went wide, "...W-What...?"  
"I swear it's true, Todd. I've had Fleurety spying on you, to protect you, and she saw Gaz doing it and told me. You know Fleurety wouldn't lie to me. But if you don't believe me, stay up late enough tonight and you'll catch her doing it yourself. She's been using your spare key to get in right through the front door."  
"...Alright, I'll do that. And then if you're right, I'll ask her for an explanation. Anything else you'd like to confess?"  
Pepito looked away from Todd and began to stare at a nearby tree, his ashen-colored cheeks starting to take on a red tint. "...Actually, there is one more thing I wanted you to know..."  
Todd stared at him nervously. This was not normal Pepito-behavior at all...  
The Antichrist hesitated for just a second before he continued, "You know how I always told you, you were like the brother I always wanted? W-Well... That's not entirely the truth. The real truth is... Todd, I'm in love with you."  
Todd's eyes went as big as saucers, and he forced himself to look away from the half-demon with a deep blush. No way. There was NO WAY this was really happening. Pepito had actually come out and said it? Todd had never felt so uncomfortable in his entire life. He did NOT return Pepito's feelings, but he didn't want to hurt Pepito either...  
Pepito sensed his true feelings and quickly added, "But I understand if you don't feel the same. I didn't decide to tell you this to try and pressure you, I just thought you should know. You wanted to absolute truth, and that's it. I love you. I always have, as long as I can remember, from the first moment I saw you..."  
Oh man, this was uncomfortable. Terribly, terribly uncomfortable. Todd didn't know what to say at first, but the awkward silence reigned on, and he knew Pepito was waiting for him to say -something-. "I... I just always wanted a real family, Pepito. I always thought of you as my brother. So..."  
He began to stall, so Pepito quickly took the chance to interrupt, "I totally get it, Todd. I'd never try to force you to do something you didn't want to, or feel something you just don't. I just wish we could go back to the way we were once in a while. I know I've been busy lately, working with my dad, collecting the souls of the damned, all that - But I really miss the way we used to hang out and just talk... How come we don't do that anymore? I'm sorry for anything I ever did to hurt you Todd, but I swear I never meant to do it - So, can we please be friends again? Just once in a little while?"  
Todd took a deep breath, and stood up. "...I'll be busy with work for a few days. But maybe next week. You've got my new number so, you know, give me a call sometime..."  
Pepito gave him a small smile. He clearly wasn't satisfied, but he knew Todd giving him his new number was an indication that he didn't want their friendship to end just yet, so he accepted the small token with as much dignity and gratitude as he could muster. "Thanks, amigo. I'll do that."  
Todd turned around and collected his friend into a hug. He let Pepito squeeze him for a few seconds before pulling back. "I gotta go to work now. See you later, alright buddy?"  
Pepito swallowed against the lump in his throat and nodded, one hand waving and the other reheating his lukewarm coffee as Todd walked away.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
All the lights were off that night - Even the night-light that Todd usually left on in his room. Nobody was crazy enough to try to break in but Johnny, but he just felt safer when there was a bit of light. But tonight, he waited expectantly in the darkness of the front room.  
He was almost beginning to nod-off when he suddenly heard someone fiddling with the front door's lock. His eyes shot open and he stared as the door swung in. There was no moon out tonight, but he could just barely make out Gaz's shapely feminine form from a flickering streetlight behind her.  
"I can't believe it..." Todd mumbled. "He was telling me the truth..."  
The paper Gaz held in her hand was dripping a suspicious red liquid onto Todd's new cherry-wood floor. He was suddenly very glad he'd decided not to go with carpet after all - But even if it wasn't as much of a hassle to clean, he was still incredibly ticked off by it. As Gaz stood there, her expression unreadable at Todd's discovery, several more drops fell, which irritated Todd so much that he finally snapped, "Can you please get that filthy thing out of my home?"  
Gaz glared at him, but she didn't seem anywhere near as disturbed as Todd clearly was. "Sorry, but no. I need to take this painting down to your basement."  
Todd stood up from where he was waiting on his couch, crossed his arms and shook his head. "I'm gonna need a little bit more in the way of an explanation for this one, Gaz."  
"You don't get it, Todd. You just don't GET IT..." She ground out slowly, trying to restrain a great deal of rage, but some of it was slipping through the cracks. "NO ONE does! I'm just trying to HELP EVERYBODY! WHY can't anyone SEE that-?!" She growled fiercely, then turned around and kicked a nearby side-table with a lamp on it, knocking both over onto the floor and breaking the lamp.  
Todd took an involuntary step back. This was so unlike the Gaz he'd seen so far. She was usually so calm and collected, even when she was angry. But now...  
Now, it was as if she was going a little 'crazy'...  
Nervously, Todd squeezed his arms tighter around each other. "Listen Gaz... I really did like you. I still do. But I don't think I can handle something like this. Breaking into someone's house late at night when you think they're asleep so you can leave bloody paintings in their basement is a PRETTY BIG breech of trust... I don't think we should go out anymore, and I don't want you coming into my house anymore. Please give me back my spare key and leave."  
Gaz was clenching the paper so hard it was crumpling in her fist. But then she took a deep breath, loosened her grip, and straightened herself out. She wasn't actually as disappointed as she was making her expression seem at the moment. As a matter of fact, everything was going exactly according to plan. She had counted on Todd discovering her, it was why she had even been bothering to come through the front door in the first place. Otherwise she could have simply used the powers of teleportation that she purposefully hadn't told Todd about, to go directly in and out of the bottom level as she pleased without disturbing him. Which she would now start doing.  
"I'll do as you wish, Todd." She finally answered him. "But before I go, I just want to tell you a few things first. I really liked you too. And I really, truly only wished to help people with my gifts, and my curse. Haven't I done that, Todd? Haven't I only tried to help you, to make your stronger?  
Guilt stabbed deep inside Todd. She was right, and he really wished she wasn't, because that fact was making this really hard to do. It was the reason he'd fallen for Gaz in the first place - She had never told him he was too weak to do something, to get behind her and let her handle the hard stuff. She always insisted that he was stronger than he gave himself credit for, and before he even knew it, her predictions had become the truth.  
His throat was still tight when he forced himself to answer, "Yes, Gaz, you have... But I still don't get -why-. And now that I know about this... I just can't trust any answer you might give me. Please just go..."  
"One more thing, Todd." Gaz insisted, stepping towards the slightly younger boy, who fought the urge to step back from her and instead waited tensely as she reached up and gave him a one-armed hug, and a soft, sweet kiss on the cheek. "I just wanted you to know what you'll be missing..."  
Todd looked away from her, reached into his pocket and pulled out her car key. As he held it out to her, she smacked it away, and then put his house key back into his pocket. "Keep it." She commanded, "Keep everything I gave you. I wouldn't have given you anything I didn't want you to have..."  
After that, she turned on her heel and walked out the door, without a goodbye. Todd silently closed and locked it behind her, and finally made his way to bed.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
"Mmm... Todd..." Pepito murmured against his pillow the next morning, like he did almost every morning. Except this time, his father was leaning over him, glaring at his sleeping son.  
"Wake UP, Pepito!" He demanded in a snarl.  
The Prince gasped and his eyes shot wide open, and he spasmed with surprise right off the edge of the bed. "UGH! What do you want, old man?!" He growled back at him, rubbing his sore back-side.  
"What do I WANT?" Senior Diablo repeated in indignation. "What I WANT is for you to forget about that useless little mortal you so pathetically cling to! I have indulged you far too long with this nonsense! You must know by now, the boy doesn't care about you! He never did! You need to just leave him in the past where he belongs and embrace your TRUE destiny!"  
Pepito growled so fiercely, flames were licking around the edges of his lips. "You're WRONG! Just because Todd doesn't -love- me the way I love him, doesn't mean he doesn't care about me at all! He does, and I know it, and you won't deceive me into believing otherwise! Now, is there some OTHER reason you barged into my room like a creep, or are you just here to bitch me out about who gives me morning wood?!"  
Diablo looked away from his half-naked son in disgust. "There's something -extremely- important you need to address this morning."  
Pepito grinned, then yawned, "Oh please. What's more important than my first spank of the day?" He continued, only too pleased to mess with his old man some more.  
But Diablo gave his son a stone-serious look as he turned back around to face him, "...Fleurety is DEAD."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	10. Chapter 10

Forget to Beget  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Even though he no longer had any enticing reward to look forward to, Todd kept playing the games Gaz had given him. He didn't really obsess over them though - Devi had quit her job, and he was asked to become the new manager in her stead, so he agreed. Of course, he was more worried about his friend than excited about the promotion.  
He tried to go to Devi's house the day after to see if she could talk, to warn her about Gaz. But both of them had moved out of their last residence, and he had no idea where to find them. He worried about them both, but especially Devi. If Gaz was the Waste Lock, which he still dearly hoped was the case, she might have already killed Devi and made up the excuses about her wanting to 'focus exclusively on her art'. She might have -become- one of Gaz's bloody works of art...  
But he couldn't think of what to do to help either of them, or even where to find them. He had to remind himself, Devi was tough too. If there was anyone who could give Gaz a run for her money, surely Devi was one of them. It still didn't settle right with him at all, and he couldn't stop thinking about it, but the only thing he could do was settle back into his old-new life without them.  
He started talking to Pepito again, but it was more or less the same as it had been before. Todd had never taken any delight in the devilish things Pepito liked to talk about, or his crude, sometimes violent humor. He invited him over to play some of the games Gaz had given him, and Todd found himself letting Pepito win. Really letting him, because he could have beaten him if he really wanted to, but he had no desire to see how the Dark Prince might react if he did.  
The hydrangeas arrived a few days after that. Todd got rid of the tired old juniper shrubs and replaced them with the new arrivals. He had to admit, the outside looked a lot more inviting now, even if he had no plans of inviting any people over.  
That was how he spent most of his spare time. He was no longer concerned with being social, with either sex, outside of work. So when he wasn't playing the video games, he was working on the house. Little by little, day after day, week after week, and then month after month, he slowly made improvements to the house. He'd finish one room, admire it for a little while, then start another one.  
He would strip away the rotting parts and replace them with shiny new lacquered woods, paint over stains that used to be red until they could no longer be seen. He'd work on and occasionally buy art to hang up where Johnny's insane sketches used to be scrawled with questionable inks, and bought cheap, secondhand, but still good-quality furniture, bookshelves and books to stock them with.  
One day, about seven or so months after the break-up with Gaz, Johnny showed up for another unexpected visit. Todd had been in the middle of painting over the walls of a room on the seventh level. He felt the other man's presence and gasped in shock as he turned to find the homicidal maniac standing there.  
He gasped some of the paint fumes in, and violently coughed them out. "Johnny?! Geez, you scared me!"  
"When have I ever NOT scared you?" Johnny replied with a shrug. "I'm surprised you didn't hear me before though. I've been walking up and down all the upper corridors, looking at the other rooms. This place is completely different than I remember it..."  
"Well the new flooring doesn't creak nearly as much as the old ones did." Todd replied, humming in thought. "And I also added some insulation in the walls of the first few levels. Keeps it warmer. Winter is coming up again, and I didn't wanna freeze my butt off like I did last year..."  
Johnny looked down at the brand new, polished wood beneath his feet, then around at the pastel-painted walls. "Wow, you really did change -everything-..."  
"Is it okay...?" The younger man asked hopefully. "I mean, some of it REALLY needed to be replaced, for safety..."  
"Huh? Yeah, everything's fine. Looks a hell of a lot better than it did before. If you didn't know any better, nobody would even suspect this place used to be a cesspool of human filth and torture..."  
"Well, that's the plan." Todd smiled. "And it gives me something to do, so..."  
Johnny crossed his arms, "Yeah, but what are you gonna do once you've completed every room? Are you gonna raise a family here or something?"  
Todd blushed at the thought at first, and then looked away with no small amount of sadness. "Nah, I don't think that's gonna happen now..."  
"Now?" Johnny repeated suspiciously. "I assume that means there was a then? Or possibly a later?"  
"I was kinda going out with a girl a few months ago." Todd confessed. "But it didn't last very long."  
"Happiness never does." Johnny replied darkly, thinking on his own past experience with romance, and the less-than-desirable outcome. "Things are always great at the start, or else they wouldn't have ever started to begin with. But the decline, the rot, it always inevitably comes..."  
"I know." His junior agreed, "All good things come to an end."  
"Exactly." The senior replied.  
"But, it's just..." Todd went on, struggling to find the words. "I... I feel like it still ended too -soon-. Like I made a mistake. I miss her..."  
Johnny was uncomfortably silent for a full moment after that, staring at Todd oddly. Finally he mumbled, "Well... You didn't KILL her, did you...?"  
Todd's eyes went predictably wide. "WHAT? NO! Of course not!"  
"Well, at least there's that." Johnny pointed out calmly. "It's not a for sure thing you'll never see her again, so you can apologize for whatever you did, and-Hey, what DID you do anyways?"  
"Actually, I didn't do anything... I broke up with her because -she- was starting to act a little crazy."  
Johnny raised an eyebrow at him, "Then why do you want to go back to that?"  
Todd pouted back, "Because I LIKED her kind of crazy! I was mad at first but now I'm not anymore, I miss her way more than I was mad at her. I want to see her again. But I have no idea where to find her because she moved away..."  
"Oh... That sucks." Johnny replied, not very helpfully.  
Todd sighed, and began to put the lids back on the paint cans - He'd finish this room later. "Yeah, it does. But, c'est la vie, right? What can I really do about it? Just gotta keep living my life... By the way, are you hungry Johnny?" He asked suddenly, feeling like a change of subject.  
Johnny thought about it for a minute, "Hmm, yeah, I guess I could eat something. Do you wanna go in on a pizza or something?"  
"Actually," Todd smiled and motioned for him to follow him out of the room and up the stairs. "I've had some chicken breasts marinating in pesto in the fridge since this morning. I was gonna bake that with some buttery-garlic-rosemary red-skinned potatoes and carrots. Does all that sound okay with you?"  
"I'm... Not sure?" Johnny replied with a raised eyebrow. "That sounds like some fancy shit. You've been fixing up the house AND you found time to learn to cook...?"  
"Heh, well, yeah!" Todd beamed proudly back at him. "To be honest, my old girlfriend was the one who suggested I learn to cook. She said, 'you perform better when you care about your nutrition', and I do feel a lot healthier now than when I was living off of spaghettios. Real homemade spaghetti is a hundred times better anyways."  
"Well, I can't be sure my taste buds are as refined as yours, but I'll give it a shot." Johnny nodded.  
When the got back up to the top level, Johnny set the table while Todd started cooking. Once he'd laid out the plates and utensils, Johnny took a minute to look around at the newly remodeled kitchen. Todd had replaced the old hardwood floors with a nice white tiling job, and the counters were a checkerboard pattern of dark blue tiles and white tiles with lemon, orange and lime wedges painted on them. Johnny's old fridge had been a barely-functioning dinosaur back from the 70's, but Todd had replaced that too, with a shiny silver contraption that Johnny was pretty sure had to double as a time machine.  
After a few moments, Johnny noticed something, "Hey, where's that Floppy rabbit I gotcha?" Probably in the trash, he assumed. He hadn't thought about it at the time, but now he was kinda embarrassed for getting a full grown man a bunny rabbit toy. Obviously Todd had much more mature hobbies and interests now...  
"Hmm? He's in my bed, of course..." Todd replied as he opened the oven door and stirred the potatoes. "I snuggle with him every night. It helps me sleep..." He admitted with a slight blush.  
Johnny blushed too and simply replied, "Oh..."  
They shared silence after that, until dinner was done. They were both mostly silent after that too, chowing down with gusto. Johnny only stopped to comment once most of his food was gone, surprised at himself for how quickly he'd consumed it. "Wow, this is really good, kid. It's really flavorful. I actually don't think I've ever tasted anything this good before."  
Todd's lips stretched into a grin. "Thanks, Johnny. I'm glad to hear that..." He trailed off a bit at the end, and added with a sigh, "I just wish Gaz had gotten to see how much better I've gotten..."  
"Is that your ex-girlfriend's name, Gaz?" Johnny guessed, thinking it sounded really weird. After Todd nodded in response, Johnny sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're still really stuck on her, aren't you..." He couldn't bring himself to scold or berate him for his feelings though. After all, Johnny had been really stuck on a girl before, too.  
"She was the most amazing woman I ever knew..." Todd replied honestly.  
And Johnny replied, much more brutally honest, "Yeah, well, sorry kid, but it's over now. You screwed up, and now you'll probably never have another chance with her again. The best thing you can do for yourself is just forget about her already and get on with your life. She probably wouldn't react the way you'd want if you ever saw or spoke to her again..."  
Admittedly, Johnny was speaking from his own experiences, so he was being more than just a little biased. But they hit home with Todd. His blunt words stabbed a sharp ache in his heart, but his brain had to admit, he was probably right. He messed up by letting her go so abruptly, and she would probably have a burning hatred for him now, after how coldly he had treated her before. The best thing to do -would- be to forget about her. "You're right, Johnny. Thanks. I would have never expected you to give great romance advice..." He smirked, being half serious and half sarcastic.  
Johnny shrugged. "Well, that's the best romance advice you can give - To NOT get involved in romance. I admittedly only have a very little experience with it, but I'm pretty sure it always eventually ends badly."  
Todd blinked in surprise at that. "Wait, experience? Does that mean-Have you had a girlfriend before, Johnny?"  
Johnny was quiet for a moment as Todd stared at him. The younger man was sure he knew why Johnny looked pretty miserable about the question, and was about to tell him that he didn't need to answer. But Johnny replied just before he did, "Kinda, not exactly... I went out with this girl named Devi D once."  
Todd gasped, loudly and immediately, "DEVI?!"  
Now it was Johnny's turn to stare at Todd, wide-eyed, and dangerously suspicious. "YOU know DEVI?"  
"Knew." Todd corrected him quickly, though he didn't plan to tell Johnny the whole truth of the matter just yet, either. "She used to work at the bookstore with me. But she quit a while back ago, to focus on her art." Or so Gaz had said... "I haven't seen her since then."  
"Oh..." Johnny looked back down at his plate and picked at it. They were both quiet for a few minutes after that, and then he mumbled, "...I hope she's doing okay. I hope she's happy. I..." He hesitated and trailed off.  
But Todd picked up where he left off, "Did you... Hurt her?"  
Johnny slowly nodded, looking ashamed. "...She whooped my ass big-time, though."  
Todd snorted, "I bet she did. No offense, but I'm -really- glad she did."  
The older man gave him a half-smile. "I'm glad she did, too."  
After dinner was done, Todd told his guest, "I'm gonna go to sleep now. I have to go to work early tomorrow. There's a guest bed in two of the rooms on the second level, you can use either one of them if you want to sleep later."  
The hot meal had made Johnny tired, but he refused to give in to sleep. He wanted to look around some more at the newly remodeled rooms. "I think I'll stay up, thanks though."  
"No problem. Have a good night, buddy." Todd replied with a careless yawn.  
But Johnny stared at him, "Wait, what did you call me...?"  
Todd cut off his yawn nervously. He dearly hoped that wasn't another one of his trigger-words. "Uh... Buddy? You know, as in friend?"  
"Oh..." Johnny looked away from him, "I... You're a nice kid, Todd."  
Todd smiled at him. He knew what he meant - He'd never had a true friend, or he killed or chased away the only ones he had. He was special to Johnny in a way he probably didn't remember anyone else ever being. "Thanks Johnny. See ya in the morning."  
After that, Todd retreated to the master bedroom, flopped onto his downy bed and snuggled up with his toy rabbit. But despite how tired he was, he didn't sleep right away either. He kept thinking about what Johnny had told him, especially about Devi. It couldn't be a coincidence. There was no way Johnny and Devi just happened to meet, and Devi just happened to be strong enough to beat Johnny and escape from him when no one else ever had been...  
Fellows of similar fates...  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Johnny stayed with Todd for a few days. When Todd got home from work, they'd play video games with each other, though this time Todd didn't let his opponent win more than a couple times, and Johnny was a good sport about losing the game. Then Todd would prepare something healthy for dinner, and Johnny would ask to help and Todd would show him how to do it.  
Todd even convinced Johnny to try and draw something, to hang up in the next room once it was finished. Johnny chose to draw an image of a girl that looked a lot like Devi - The Devi he last remembered seeing, anyways. She had short purple hair in his picture, where Todd last remembered her having longer maroon-colored hair. She was standing in a grassy field, under a dark sky with a full moon, and there was a strange, robotic-looking, demon cat-thing standing nearby her.  
Todd liked it despite and especially because of it's oddities, and he immediately insisted on hanging it up, even though Johnny initially didn't like it and wanted to throw it away. But Todd refused to let him, he insisted it would go perfectly with the newest remodeled room, which he had been painting lavender.  
When Johnny decided that it was time for him to leave again, Todd once again filled up the gas tank for him, and sent him off with a backpack of books and snacks. Even though the man giving him these things was at least but probably more than ten years his junior, Johnny still felt kind of like a little kid himself when Todd handed over and pack and explained what was inside, and then asked for a brief hug goodbye. Johnny didn't remember what kind of mother he'd had, but he knew that was what a good mother would do.  
This time he reached around and awkwardly patted the kid's back a couple times as Todd encircled his arms around him, and after just a light squeeze, immediately let him go again. "Take care of yourself, okay Johnny?"  
"Yeah, I can do that." Johnny replied semi-reluctantly, but with a smile. "Since you're taking care of pretty much everything else."  
"Heh!" Todd grinned back at him, "Don't worry about it! I'm happy to do it!"  
Johnny gave him a half-smile, then reached over and ruffled his hair. It was much softer and cleaner than his, and he took just a second to envy it. "Well, I'm happy if you're happy... Thanks again, kid."  
After that, Johnny got into his car and drove away.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
The next day, Todd got a call from Pepito. He could tell right away that the Antichrist wasn't in the best mood as he responded to Todd's hello drably, "Hey Todd..."  
"Is everything okay, Pepito? You sound pretty down." Todd predictably pointed out.  
"Honestly, I am..." He was also infuriated beyond belief, but he wasn't about to direct that towards Todd. He wanted comfort from his friend and he knew showing his anger would only scare the boy away. "Do you think it would be okay for me to come over later today?"  
"Yeah, sure, of course." Todd replied right away, genuinely concerned for him. Pepito didn't get depressed very often at all. "I get off work at six tonight, so I'll be home by six-thirty, okay?"  
"Perfecto, amigo. I'll see you then."  
He was actually waiting outside the door when Todd got home at six-twenty. "Oh, hey Pepito..." He greeted him, trying to not be weirded out by it. At least he hadn't broken into his house. He opened the door for him and then motioned for him to sit down on the couch. "So, what's up? Are you okay?"  
Pepito sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Todd had installed a new ceiling fan some time ago, and he watched the blades spin as he answered, "I guess I'M okay, but..."  
"Huh? What's wrong? Is Rosemary okay?" Todd guessed right away that something had to have happened to Pepito's frail human mother.  
"No, she's fine. Better than ever, in fact. Dad finally convinced her to convert to Satanism. She was just happy she got to keep her old cross - All she had to do is wear it upside down."  
"Oh, well then...?"  
Pepito looked away from him and darkly mumbled. "The war itself is not going quite as well..."  
Todd's eyes went wide with surprise. Surprise, but also some hidden relief. "Seriously? Why not? I thought you and your dad said taking over the Earth was gonna be a sure thing in just a few more decades..."  
"It was-It should have been-It WILL be!" Pepito struggled and finally failed to answer calmly. "Even after what happened to Sargatanas, we were still making good progress. But then... Todd, I didn't tell you this at first because I didn't want to worry you about something you couldn't help, but a few months ago, Fluerety was killed. And now, just yesterday, we found Satanachia in a pool of his own blood. Literally. We found his body in the pool. It was one hell of a mess..."  
Todd stared at him in shock for more than a moment. "...S-Someone's been killing the Generals of Hell...?" He finally whispered, deeply disturbed.  
Pepito directed a hard look back at him. "No, not just 'someone' Todd. The Generals of Hell cannot be killed by just anyone. The only beings capable of killing any one of the is either my father or me, and obviously it wasn't us, or one of the Waste Lock Candidates."  
Todd gasped, "W-Well, I didn't do it of course!" Pepito rolled his eyes, he'd already known that. "And it couldn't have been Johnny this time either. He was visiting for a few days, and I had the day off work yesterday. He was with me the whole day!"  
Pepito nodded in understanding and acceptance. "I already knew it wasn't you, and I was pretty sure Johnny hadn't committed the newest crimes, either. I'm very sure I know who really did do it, though... Todd, have you seen Gaz Membrane lately?"  
Todd shook his head right away. "No, Pepito. I haven't seen her since I broke up with her..."  
Pepito's mouth curled up at the reminder, just the way it did when Todd had first told him that news. "I'm almost positive it's her, Todd. We found this floating in the bloody pool when we were cleaning it out..." He pulled out a long, maroon-colored hair from his pocket. Asmodeus had short, black hair. "If you saw her, you'd tell me, right? I wouldn't have hurt her just because she went out with you, but this... She murdered my some of my very best soldiers, Todd. My very best friends..."  
Todd swallowed hard. "That IS pretty terrible..."  
"So, you'll tell me if you see her, right?" Pepito pressured.  
Slowly, Todd nodded. "I haven't seen her in a long time, but if I do, I will let you know..."  
Pepito reached over and squeezed him tight. Todd let him, even though it was uncomfortable. "Gracias, amigo..." In his mind, Pepito thought to himself, 'Mi amor...'  
Todd finally began to pry away from him. "Hey, do you maybe want to play a video game? I've got some of that spicy cinnamon tea you like so much, do you want a cup?"  
Pepito reluctantly let him go, but gave him a genuine smile. "That sounds really good. Make mine extra hot!"  
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A few more months passed by after that. Todd didn't see Gaz at all, except every time he played one of her games, ate a delicious meal, or did just about anything else. It was beyond difficult, but he knew Johnny was right, and he had to forget about her. Just as he'd loved Devi and forgotten about her, he had to do the same now. He knew his life couldn't go on until he did.  
He eventually beat all of her scores on all of the video games, but she never showed up to congratulate him. Not that he really expected her too, but then again, with Gaz, you just never knew.  
Once the games were completed, he put them away and focused on remodeling some more of the barren rooms. But when he noticed that he'd painted the last four rooms in magenta, purple, orchid and maroon, he decided that he maybe ought to take a break from that too.  
He was aimless for a few days, but he finally decided to return to his writing, which he'd been putting off for a while. It seemed like every story he'd been trying to write had one part of it missing, and it had been frustrating and infuriating him. Either they would have a beginning and a middle, but no end, or a beginning and an end, but no middle - Sometimes, they even had a middle and an end, but no beginning!  
It was maddening to read his sloppy, old, half-written work, but he found that once he did, his head was swirling with ideas, and not one of them was about Gaz, or anyone else for that matter. He began writing again, and finally finished the ending to 'Persephone-88'. Then he moved on to his other works, and slowly but surely began to write them into completion as well.  
For the first time since he met her, he finally began to forget about Gaz. Several days passed while he finished a few more of his stories, and he didn't give her a single thought.  
He was right in the middle of not thinking about her at all, when she finally reappeared, literally right out of the blue, in the middle of his living room, right in front of him. He looked up from his work in shock, and dropped the book onto his lap. She was giving him a broad smile - She looked genuinely happy to see him.  
And he couldn't deny, in that instant, he'd never been happier to see her. The first time he'd seen her, he'd been terrified of her - But this time, he instead felt what he'd felt the first time he'd laid eyes on Devi. His heart was full of love and longing for her, beating against his chest like a madman screaming to be free from his cell.  
Gaz's smile turned into an excited grin. She reached down and planted her lips firmly against Todd's. At first Todd was glad to let her, but then to his surprise, he felt as if her kiss was sucking out all of the love and passion he'd just been feeling for her. It didn't leave him feeling empty or drained though - In fact, when she finally pulled back again, he felt purely content. He wanted nothing from her, and he was just fine with that. At the same time though, he kind of wasn't. He much preferred the dangerous but exciting feelings of desire rather than the safe but boring contentment.  
For now though, he didn't seem to have much choice. After Gaz let go of his lips, she continued to smile down on him, and announced, "Congratulations, Todd. You finally beat my last challenge."  
Todd raised a bewildered eyebrow at the mysterious girl. "What last challenge...?"  
She smirked devilishly, "You had to -forget- about me. You had to banish me from your mind and heart. Now that you've managed to do that, I can finally tell you the truth..."  
"The truth about what?"  
"...Everything."  
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	11. Chapter 11

A Marriage of Truth and Time  
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"Everything?" Todd echoed in confusion, and joked lightly, "Sounds like you've got a LOT of explaining to do..."  
"Yes, I do. So stop talking now." Gaz growled, and Todd promptly zipped his lips in apprehension. His magenta-headed love-sickness continued, "First of all, since I know it's been bugging you for a while, I'll start with this: I am not the Waste Lock."  
Todd gulped - He didn't wish to infuriate her by disobeying so quickly, but he had to know, "You knew what you were all along?"  
She shrugged, "Yes and no. Because I wasn't a Waste Lock Candidate at first. My brother was. I took his place, to protect him. But we'll get back to that later - That's one of my bigger secrets so I'm saving it for last. The next one I'm gonna tell you is who the Waste Lock actually IS. Except, I have a feeling you just put it together for youself."  
Todd nodded, "Devi... What happened to her?"  
Gaz pursed her lips to the side, "Well, she's a bit horribly insane at the moment. But we've been doing a good job of keeping it under control. I've been making sure she keeps herself fed and washed, and she's been killing only the scum of the Earth that I've been suggesting she kill."  
"But... It's my fault it happened to her. The curse caught her because she killed those men protecting me... Aren't you furious with me?" She had said when they first met that if Devi got hurt because of him, she would, what had she said - 'Destroy his life as he knew it'? Vague as ever...  
"No, because you aren't the one who inflicted her with the curse that caused that to even be an issue." Gaz explained neutrally. "That was the Devil. The one my mother told me about when I was a child. Again, we'll get to my mother later - Biggest secrets, saving them for last."  
"H-How much do you know about the Devil...?" Todd asked her nervously.  
"Enough to knew you've got something to do with him." Gaz answered, smirking in amusement as Todd broke out into a sweat and 'squee'd under his breath. "But, then again, all of the Waste Lock Candidates do. We're all partially possessed by and connected to the realms of Hell."  
"Partially?" Todd repeated with a raised brow.  
"Mmhm. Y'see Todd, we've got our own individual human souls, but when we were chosen, which usually happens at or soon after conception, a second soul attached to ours, like a parasite. Those souls are the ancient remnants of four terrible demons, demons that were baptized in the Rivers of Hell. Devi's demon was forged by Akheron, the River of Sorrow. My demon came from Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Oh, that reminds me, check this out."  
Gaz held out her hand, and a ball of flame flickered to life in her palm. She told him, "The demon of Phlegethon didn't actually give me this power. I got it, and all my other powers, from a Cosmic Witch. Someday another Cosmic Witch will come to kill me, but I'm not really worried about that yet..."  
Todd really couldn't comprehend the last bit of what she'd said, it was too strange, and he was a bit mesmerized by the flame, which Gaz turned into a pretty purple color, and then pink, and finally blue. "Wow, Pepito can't make his fire any other color but orange or black..." He coughed nervously realizing what he'd blurted out, but Gaz continued without acknowledging what he'd said just yet.  
"You, Todd, are possessed by the only demon who was bathed in two of the rivers of Hell. Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, and Kokytos, River of Lamentation. You could say your demon is the one which is most strongly connected to Hell. And finally, the little friend you got this 'fixer-upper' from? He's possessed by Styx, the River of Hate."  
That actually made a lot of sense, Todd thought to himself. Except, "How did you know about Johnny?"  
"I knew every sordid detail of this house's hellish past the second I knocked on the door for the very first time. You've done a good job putting lipstick on the pig here, Todd. But I see this place for what it really was, and still is. Yes, is - Devi's demon is clawing to get out, just like Johnny's once did. If it gets out, it will annihilate the entire planet. But it will stay inside as long as fresh blood is sacrificed to it every night. I've still been secretly going into your basement to give it Devi's sacrifices, by the way. To keep the entire world from being destroyed, and to keep Devi from killing you by accident. You're freaking welcome."  
"Th-Thanks, Gaz, and I'm sorry about that..." Todd mumbled.  
Gaz rolled her eyes in response, "Don't be. I wanted you to forget about me for a while, remember?"  
"Oh, right... Why is that?" Todd scratched the back of his head idly.  
"I'll get to that in a minute - But first, I want to tell you something else..." She trailed off mysteriously.  
"W-What's that...?" Todd blinked up at her.  
She suddenly slid onto his lap, shocking him in the most sensual way possible. She wove her fingers through his hair and looked deep into his eyes. "I know you missed me. And, well... I missed you too..."  
She leaned down and pressed her lips firmly to his once again. All the passion she had sucked from him in her last kiss returned like a tidal wave, crashing over Todd and consuming his body. Without even thinking about it, Todd grabbed her hips and pressed back into the kiss. Gaz turned her head and licked at his lips, and he got the idea pretty quickly.  
They made out for a few minutes, and when Gaz pulled away she licked her lips and went, "Mm. You taste like garlic."  
"I had spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner..." He informed her breathlessly. He realized too with a blush, his lower half had been reacting to her actions...  
She didn't get up off his lap, but she didn't acknowledge the situation she was currently sitting on, either. Instead she went on, "I needed you to forget about me because it's necessary to my plans. I think I know a way how we can break this curse. But," she added quickly as Todd's mouth dropped in shock. "Don't get too excited yet - It's not gonna be easy. And first, I need to know this: Do you really, truly love me?"  
Todd closed his mouth, and slowly nodded. "Yes..."  
Gaz smiled a little sadly, and reached in for another quick kiss. "I'm glad. I wanted you to love me, even though we both could stand to lose everything. I want to make love to you just as much as you want me, but as I said before, first I want there to be no secrets between us... So, this is what I want you to do: You tell me your biggest secret, and I'll tell you mine."  
Todd was pretty sure Gaz already knew, and that this was more an issue of trust, to see if he would admit to it. Still, he had to tease her a little bit, "I'm not so sure that's a fair trade. My biggest secret is pretty damn BIG..."  
She smirked widely, showing off a sharp canine tooth. "Trust me, Todd. My secret is still bigger..."  
He nodded, then took a deep breath, scrunched his eyes shut, and blurted out, "My best friend is the literally the Antichrist. He is the son of the Devil, the spawn of Satan. He saved me from my abusive family and I lived with him for several years."  
He waited a few seconds before opening his eyes. When he did, he found that Gaz's smirk hadn't fallen at all. Without saying anything, Gaz got up off his lap, and took a few steps back from him. He was about to get up too, but she put a hand up to stop him. "You're gonna want to stay sitting for this one."  
Todd raised an eyebrow as watched her as she closed her eyes in concentration. At first nothing was happening, and Todd was getting confused. But then to his utter and complete shock, Gaz's peach-colored skin flickered away like a hologram, and was replaced by skin of a pale, minty-green color.  
Todd's mouth dropped and his eyes were like saucers as Gaz explained, "My mother wasn't human. She came from a planet far, far away called Irk. My father sold his soul for inhuman knowledge, and so that my brother would have to take his place as the Waste Lock Candidate. He forced my mother to have us so that one of us could be sacrificed. He's a real son of a bitch and I kinda hate him. But, yeah, basically..."  
She crossed her arms and turned her still-pretty green face away, almost a bit bashfully. "I'm an alien..."  
"...Okay, you win. That secret was definitely bigger than mine..." Todd mumbled back after a few seconds of shocked silence.  
"Told you." She smirked back at him. "But there's more to it..."  
"No way, there's -more- to the 'being an alien from outer space' story?" Her young lover replied sarcastically.  
"Yes, there is, and there isn't as much time to explain as I'd like, so cease all your unnecessary noise-making already. Ideally, I believe we should all treat our loved ones as if you never know when they'll disappear. When your days together are numbered and getting shorter. But unfortunately for us, Todd, I really do know when our last days together will be, and it's not that far off..."  
Todd gulped nervously. "Is... Is one of us going to die...?"  
Gaz shrugged carelessly. "Well, yeah, someday both of us will die. But that's not what I meant. I'm going to have to leave this planet someday, sooner than later. My destiny is and has always been to save the people from my mother's home planet, and free them from tyranny. But first I wanted to do the same for us here on Earth. I have to break the curse that we're under, design a new kind of spell to replace it and keep the world from being destroyed, and defeat the demon Lord Diablo that enslaved me, my mother, father and brother."  
"WHA-Defeat DIABLO?!" Todd sputtered back at her, but she shushed him quickly.  
"Yes, Todd. It's been my plan all along to capture and eventually kill Diablo. But I can't do it by myself - I need you." She informed him seriously, staring into his eyes.  
At first Todd looked away nervously. "I... I'm not sure I could do that, Gaz. I don't approve of a lot of things Diablo or Pepito does, but they saved my life-"  
Gaz shook her head slowly, seriously and very sadly as she interrupted him, "No, Todd... You don't understand. They've done nothing but ruin your life thusfar. They stole your childhood from you. They stole your parents from you."  
"My parents...?" Todd looked back at her with wide eyes, but then he shook his head, trying to deny it. "No, you've got that part wrong, Gaz - Johnny was the one who killed my parents. And honestly I don't even care. They never cared about me, after all..."  
Gaz swallowed against her tightening throat, and went over to the couch to sit next to Todd, wrapping her arms around one of his. "Listen to me carefully, you poor, dear boy... Normally demons can't just possess any person. Whether the human realizes it or not, they have to invite them in. But that's not the case for Waste Lock Candidates... Or their parents." Todd looked over at her, but now she was the one avoiding his eyes. "Todd... Your parents started out as a happy couple. They really loved each other and they wanted to have a baby together. They -wanted- you. You were -not- an unplanned pregnancy like your dad always told you, because it wasn't really him saying that at all. Your parents planned on loving you, but when you were chosen as a waste lock candidate, you were chosen as something else too..."  
"What are you talking about?" Todd demanded now, shaking with a flurry of confusing and infuriating emotions.  
"Your 'friend', the Antichrist... I know you want to believe he's different from his father, that he can change and do better things with his life. But he's not, and he can't. Pepito is an extension of Diablo, they are the same. Rosemary's human blood in his veins makes no difference, it's just a human meat sack, a lame disguise. He's not human, he's a demon, just like his father. The only difference between them is Pepito has a few different jobs to do. First of all, he's got to defeat me - We've been fated to face each other since this planet came into being. Second of all... He's got to capture you."  
"No, no, that can't be right-" Todd insisted, still in denial. "Pepito SAVED me, and when I wanted to go, he let me!"  
Gaz clenched her teeth. She didn't want to have to do this the hard way, but it looked like he was leaving her no choice. "No, he didn't! He set you up from the very beginning so that you'd NEED to be saved! Every horrible thing that has ever happened to you in your life was because of him! And if that wasn't bad enough, he's been manipulating you, trying to get you to LOVE him! His dad is a grade-A Asshole and made a bet with the thing calling itself the 'God' of this world, that if Pepito could get you to love him, the holy war would be called off with Diablo as the victor. Pepito only thinks he 'loves' you because Diablo has been shoving what he thinks is that emotion down his throat since before he was even born. But he doesn't -really- love you Todd - He's OBSESSED with you! He'll do or say anything to make you want to love him, but it's all a TRAP!"  
Todd couldn't reply just yet - He could barely breath through how tight his throat was. So instead Gaz went on, "Todd, I really am sorry to have to tell you all this, but I swear on my LIFE, it's the truth. The fate of our planet and every creature that lives on it depends on us. We MUST defeat Pepito and Diablo."  
Her young love stared at a wall for a moment or two, and then finally took in a shuddering sigh, which then turned into a sob. "W-What... What do I have to do..."  
Gaz squeezed his arm and laid her head against his shoulder. "It's not going to be easy..."  
"Nothing in my life has been easy." Todd replied almost evenly, wiping away the water that was gathering in his eyes. "So what do I have to do to take those bastards down?"  
Gaz reached up and look both sides of his face, leading him into a long kiss before she pulled back to answer, "You're going to have to pretend to give them what they want. From this moment on, you are mine, but you'll have to convince Pepito that you're still loyal to him. That you're even falling in love with him. And it MUST be convincing - That's why I needed you to be able to forget about me. In the shadows, we will be working together to bring him down, but he has to trust you until the very last second. And when that last second comes, you will be the one to strike Pepito down, and I will take Diablo."  
Todd's stomach crawled so violently it was as if a rotten egg full of maggots had just exploded inside of him. But stronger than even his disgust was his hatred, his need to get even for all that was taken away from him. "I'll do it... But, what do we have to do to make you strong enough to take on Diablo?"  
She smiled a little shyly at that. "That part is actually a great deal easier - For you, anyways. It'll be an ordeal for me, but it's the only way to break our curse..."  
"What do you mean?"  
She sighed, "Think about it, Todd... Our curse is one of death. To spread the blood of those we kill. The only thing that can combat death... Is life."  
Todd still looked confused, so to hit her point home to him, she placed a hand over her stomach and lightly rubbed the area. Then Todd's eyes went wide and he sputtered out, "O-Oh! Um..."  
"It's the only way." She insisted. "Trust me, if there was any other way, I'd do it. But this is my curse to bear, and for the sake of this world, I must bear it..." She reached over and took Todd's hand, leading it to rest on her stomach. "So... Will you help me?"  
He didn't remove his hand, but he blushed and looked away, "I... I don't know, that seems like a pretty big thing to agree to, just like that..."  
"I know." She replied as patiently as she could. "But the fate of the world is just a little bit bigger, sweetie. You said before that you wouldn't mind having a family someday. I know it's probably a lot earlier than you expected, but like I said, we don't have much time. My brother is going to come back for me, and when he arrives I'm going to have to go with him. We have to defeat Diablo before he gets here."  
"And then what? You're just going to leave us behind?" He wasn't pleased with her plan and his tone didn't hide it.  
"I have to, Todd. I promised my mother I would. Her people are depending on me. I wish I could bring you with me, but I need you to stay here on Earth, to protect our child until they're old enough to protect themselves. I really have grown to love you, please believe that. But what we want is just not possible. We CAN be together... But we have to do it now. I stayed behind on Earth to protect my brother, but to be honest, I had my own selfish reasons, too. I've always known I would have to leave the Earth behind someday to fulfill my destiny, but... I always hoped I could get the chance to know what it was like to have a 'normal' life for once, too. To be a 'normal' human Earth-girl."  
Todd gave her a good hard stare after that. She simply stared right back. So he finally answered, "So, I've got to seduce and betray my best friend turned worst enemy, help you defeat his father the Devil, and get you, my alien lover... P-Pregnant!" He sputtered it out nervously, much to her amusement. "All before your brother arrives - Which will be how far off?"  
"Just a little over a year. And yes. Also, I kind of lied to you before - I have -one- last challenge for you. Are you up to it?"  
He let out a sigh, blowing his shaggy-cut bangs away from his face, and rolled his eyes. "Bring it on, babe."  
She smirked and got up from her spot next to him. "Okay, sweetie." Apparently that was the pet name she'd chosen for him. "I'm going to leave for an hour, and then I'll be back. I want you to meet me at the bottom level of the house."  
Todd paused, and gulped nervously. He hadn't gone anywhere near that room since he'd finished dumping the bodies, and hadn't had any plans to, even before he knew there was a demon trapped there. "W-Why do you want to go there...?"  
She crossed her arms defiantly, "I'll tell you once you get there." She told him, and then in the next second, she had disappeared as suddenly as she'd come. Todd hesitated, but only for a moment or two before getting a flashlight from the kitchen and heading for the stairway.  
The first dozen levels were practically a cake-walk since they'd been remodeled and well-lit, but after that Todd started having to put his flashlight to use. It had been scary enough descending these levels when he had Johnny to accompany him, but it was much worse this time now that he was alone. Shivers constantly wracked his spine and jumping shadows made him want to bolt. And a couple of times he really gasped aloud and squee'd when he thought he saw a horrible monster, but he refused to give into his fear and run, and he soon realized it was just one of Johnny's paintings or a scary-looking stain that he hadn't yet painted over.  
Still, it got worse and worse as he got closer to the final level, and he felt that terrifyingly familiar presence that he remembered from the last time he'd been in this abysmal room, that slight choking sensation. When he finally descended the very last stairway and stood with his solitary flashlight in the middle of the large, pitch dark and empty room, he felt as if the walls he could barely see in the distance were trying to get closer, to trap him. He felt a stronger urge than ever to run from this place, but he willed his feet to stay planted where they were, to keep breathing despite the tightness against his throat.  
He was just starting to get panicky and think, 'Please Gaz, get here already...' when she did just that. She suddenly appeared in the path of his light, and with a wave of her hand she set just over a dozen different colored balls of fire to light the room around them. Her multicolored flames cast a beautiful but spooky rainbow glow over the still dark and dim room, but it was considerably less scary now, and the chokey-feeling went away.  
Gaz threw her newly acquired blood-painting to the floor without care, away from herself. It was then that Todd noticed the simple yet elegant gown she was wearing - White, though it was hard to tell with all the different colored lights glowing off of it. The top of it was sleeveless, wrapped snugly around her full bosom, while the skirt, seperated by a sash made of black spiderweb lace with a mother of pearl skull ornament, flowed freely to just below her knees.  
It made sense, of course. If they were going to do what they were about to do, they ought to marry each other first.  
Todd stared at her beauty, and suddenly felt pretty stupid wearing the same plain white button-up shirt and black slacks he'd worn to work earlier that day. "I don't suppose you can conjure me up a tuxedo too? I mean, where did you manage to get that dress so quickly...?"  
Gaz rolled her eyes, but smirked in amusement. "No, conjuring clothes isn't one of my powers. I mean, I -could- zip in and out of a shop, but that would be a gross misuse of my powers, and also stealing, since no bridal store would be open this late. Besides, you look fine. As for where I got my dress, well, I made it a while back ago..."  
Todd shrugged off his disappointment - She was right, stealing was wrong, and he just appreciated that she dressed herself up for him. Approaching her, he looked up and down several times at her shapely form and the cute, short, semi-revealing dress she had chosen. She watched him watching her, smirking at how every bit of his attention was possessed by her presence.  
When he was nearly next to her, she pulled out a bouquet from behind her back, which Todd realized was a few bunches of the Hydrangea flowers that had been growing in his yard. "You look... Perfect." He whispered with a smile.  
She continued to smirk, "That's because I AM perfect. But thank you sweetheart~"  
He rolled his eyes and smiled at her egotistical comment. "It's just... Are you sure you want to get married HERE though...?"  
She nodded very seriously. "Pepito can't know about us, so we can't make it public. Besides, there's no one we'd want to invite to our wedding that isn't either currently dead, insane, a selfish son of a bitch, or out in the middle of space. And to be honest, I feel like this is the perfect place for me to be married... Despite my spooky fire powers, I'm actually not the Fire Witch. She's the one who's going to kill me and take my place someday. I am the fuel that feeds her fire. I am the Earth Witch. So it's only fitting that I be wed beneath the earth..."  
"Okay..." He reached down and put his hands over hers, "Well, I guess I'm ready whenever you are, then. Oh, but wait, I'll have to think up some vows, too... Too bad we don't have one of those minister guys to marry us off and make this official, eh?"  
A voice that clearly was not Gaz answered Todd from behind him, on the staircase, "May I humbly offer my assistance?"  
At first Todd gasped in fear as he turned to see who had spoken, but then he calmed his breathing as he saw the strangely familiar spectral face, with brown hair and tan skin and white angel wings protruding from his back. Olive green eyes behind rounded glasses stared back at him.  
The spirit continued with a bow, "Pleased to finally make your acquaintence, Todd Casil. My name is Edgar Vargas. I'd like to say, I'm quite a fan of what you've been doing with this place. It's much nicer to have your ghost trapped in a fixed location when it's nice and neat instead of being infested with rotting bodies. I hope you don't mind, but I've been frequenting that sky blue room on the seventh level lately, the one you painted with clouds on the walls. My spirit feels calm in that room..."  
Todd shook his head, "I don't mind, feel free to use it as long as you like. There's -plenty- of other rooms, after all."  
Edgar's ghost smiled a little and nodded appreciatively. "Thats very kind of you, Todd. I know there's not much I can do to return the favor, but if you're alright with the arrangement, I would like to marry you and your beautiful bride."  
Todd blinked in surprise. "Oh - Were you a minister when you were alive, Mr. Vargas?"  
The spirit shook it's head. "No, but you made me the 'Saint' of this house, remember Todd? I'm sure a Saint is just as good as a minister. Also you can call me Edgar, if you like."  
Todd looked over to Gaz inquiringly, who shrugged her shoulders is passive acceptance. Then he turned back to the ghost and nodded. "We'll gladly take you up on your offer, Mr. Edgar."  
Edgar chuckled a bit at the 'Mr' Todd still insisted on using. "Excellent. Then let us begin."  
The angelic spectre float-walked over to where the two young lovers stood, and stretched out his semi-transparent white wings over them. "Todd, do you take Gaz to be your wife?"  
It was as simple as that, no drawn out flowery lists of things they needed to do, how much they needed to cherish one another or for how long. That was up to them. Todd smiled sweetly as he stared into his bride's brown eyes and answered, "Yes, I do."  
Edgar turned to the pretty green girl next, "Gaz, do you take Todd to be your husband?"  
Gaz squeezed one of his hands and used the other to hold the bouquet close to her bosom. "I do."  
"I now pronounce you Husband and Wife. You may-"  
Gaz didn't wait for his permission. She let go of Todd's hand and wrapped that arm around the back of his neck, dragging his mouth over to hers in a firm, inseperable kiss. Her tongue soon insisted its way into his mouth, and Edgar promptly floated away to go sit in his Cloud Room, since he was obviously no longer needed. It was quite clear by the fierceness of her kiss that Gaz would not be stopped from taking what she wanted now, and Todd wouldn't have asked her to for the world.  
Well, he -might- have asked her to stop, if she insisted on continuing in that creepy room. But she snapped her fingers and with a strange heavy jolting feeling in his belly, which sort of felt like being in an elevator while it's being lifted, he found himself standing in his own bedroom at the top level instead.  
Gaz shoved him back onto the mattress of his bed, and then climbed on top of him. She glanced bemusedly at the stuffed rabbit by Todd's pillow, then reached over and turned it around, so that those unblinking glossy eyes was facing the headboard instead of them, which Todd was grateful for. Then she turned her attention back on her husband.  
"Todd, my love..." She began in a low, husky voice, bending down over him slowly until her lips were just a few mere inches from his own. Her burgandy hair framed around his face like a curtain, obstructing his view of everything else but her face. "I'm gonna give you something to remember for the rest of your life..."  
All the nightmares, all the monstrosities, all the trauma and violations of his body and soul - She made him forget them all that night. She took away all the darkness in him and replaced it with flames of passion for her - Strong as his fear had been, his love for her was stronger still.  
When they made love, she held his upper body gently in her arms as if he were as precious and fragile as a golden egg, while her legs squeezed his lower half like it was all that was keeping her from floating away into space - Just in case though, he wrapped his arms around her waist to make extra sure.  
He'd never felt anything quite so nice in his entire life. So stressful, though in only the best possible way, and yet so completely natural and relaxing.  
When they were both done, Gaz wiped away his unexpected tears without saying anything about them, and kissed his cheek before letting herself fall asleep next to him, with her ear pressed next to his heart, and Todd held her tight. He never wanted to let go, and knowing that someday he would have to left a hole in his heart that only she could ever fill.  
Oh well. At least she was here now. For just a few short moments in his previously cursed life, he could have desire, contentment, and bliss. It was worth it.  
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	12. Chapter 12

Masks and Mazes  
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When Todd woke up the next morning, he almost expected the last night's experience to just be a crazy, uncommonly nice dream. His dreams were still always crazy, but no longer usually as horrible as they were in his childhood. Usually. He'd been having a nice dream about having a morning cup of tea with Gaz, and was woken up when her head suddenly turned into Pepito, and then Diablo's head.  
But when he opened his eyes, it was his wife's pretty, magenta hair and her soft, minty-green skin he saw. He ran his hand along through her locks, and realized that one small lock seemed to be stuck. He pulled it out, only to find that it wasn't a lock of hair at all. It was a thin black... Thing. An antennae...?  
Suddenly Gaz woke up and smacked his hand away. "You're not supposed to touch the lekku without permission, Todd my sweet..."  
He took his hand back immediately. "Sorry, I didn't know. Still getting used to the whole 'my girlfriend is an alien' thing..."  
"Wife." She corrected immediately. "Your wife is an alien."  
"Right, right - Sorry." He blushed bashfully. "That's what I meant. So then, how are we going to start off our first day as husband and wife?" He asked suggestively, but with shyness in his eyes and smile. They were still naked, after all...  
Gaz reached up and gave him a firm kiss, but then she abruptly pushed him off of her and began to climb out of bed herself. "I think eggs and bacon are always a good way to start the day. You need your protein. You have a long, hard day of work today." She informed him, bending down to collect her clothes.  
"Work? But today is my day off." He corrected her in confusion.  
She shook her head and turned to look back at him. "You're not going to be selling books today, Todd. You've got a much more important job to do."  
Todd nodded solemnly. "What do I do? What do I say to him? Will you be home when I get back?" Already he felt the need to purify himself in Gaz's arms, and he hadn't even spoken to his horned, serpent-tongued 'friend'...  
"Sorry, but no. I've got something very important to do tonight and I won't be back in until late. But that's okay, because neither will you. Did you happen to notice what day it is?"  
Todd blinked in recognition as he recollected the information. "Oh yeah, it's Halloween tonight, isn't it?"  
"Yes it is, Todd." Gaz grinned slowly back at him. "It's Halloween, and I've weakened his defenses more than they've ever been. Offer to stay with him tonight, past midnight. Past the witching hour, into All Saints Days. If you do, something magical might happen. Just don't forget - To forget! If he asks about me, or says anything about you or your past that rightfully should make you mad - Just forget about it, forget it all, push it to the back of your mind. You must make him think that not only are you considering joining him, but that you are against me. You must tease him with this bait for one year, and at the end of that year you will promise to sign your soul to him, but only IF he captures me! And of course, by then I will be strong enough to snatch him up in his own fucking web..." She was grinning like a madman as she said this, so excited to finally reveal this to someone, but Todd thought she never looked more beautiful. He'd been thinking that every time he looked at her, since last night...  
After taking a blissful sigh, Gaz continued, "Diablo is getting desperate. He never expected someone like me, someone more powerful and more clever than him, would show up this close to end-game. This house, this HOLE, this PIT in the ground, is one of his most concentrated domains on Earth!" She gestured around them, her grin becoming larger and more excited. "So if my magic is strong enough already that I can hide from him here, and he hasn't found me yet, then he'll never find me unless you were to tell him I've been here, which I trust you won't do until the exact moment I want you to... Now, your best chance of getting back on Pepito's good side quickly enough to erase the doubt you caused by your little 'I need my space' spat, is to go to him tonight, and do everything he wants to do. I will purify you of his filthy touches when you come back to me. Because I know you will come back to me. And by tomorrow and a year from now, we will have defeated them, and we will be... 'Free' from their curse..."  
Todd stared back at her with a sad half-smile, "I have a feeling there's a 'but' you need to tell me about at the end there... Isn't there, dear?"  
Gaz nodded, her expression darkening, "Devi and I will be free completely. But we are dealing with the powers that have, so far, controlled and possessed the entire Earth... I AM more powerful than him, but his power is nothing to underestimate either. I can seal them away... However, it might require that -someone- guard that seal for a lifetime..."  
"I'll do it." Todd immediately offered to her, without even asking the conditions. Humanity and all of this wondrous planet had been in the hands of this horrible demon for too long. How could he not agree to help her free them all, even if it meant he had to sacrifice himself? One person's life for all the life on an entire planet? He wouldn't dare not die a martyr for such an obviously worthy cause, and his life had never been his own to begin with.  
"That's very noble of you, my love. But we'll burn that bridge when we get to it." Gaz replied with a grateful but mischievous smile. "First you need to get Pepito and Diablo right where I want them... Lure them in. You must do that for me, my love, because you are the only bait in the world that the devil desires most..."  
"I'll do it." He repeated to her with a determined nod. "There's just one thing... Will I have to, be like Johnny? Will I have to kill people and feed him blood-?"  
"No, Todd, no-" Gaz immediately cut him off, her piercing golden-brown eyes locking onto his chocolate-colored orbs. "Nothing like that will ever happen to you, I promise. You didn't really think I'd reward your loyalty like that, did you? And how would you protect our child if you're dangerously insane? Listen. I can't promise that you'll never have a nightmare again, but I will promise that there will be far less and much less frightening dreams in your future. You will live a life full of bliss and contentment after we defeat our enemies, even after I'm no longer here. I promise you that, Todd..."  
She had drawn near to him, holding him and letting him hold her. Without letting him go, she began to murmur in his ear, "And, if it makes you feel more brave while you go to see him, I guess you could say you're under my protection now, so don't worry about Pepito having Asmodeus read your thoughts or Agaliarept unveil your secrets. Just forget about all that, and everything else, except our mission..."  
He nodded mutely, and she went on, "You must remember but also forget something especially important tonight Todd - The devil has expended so much effort into you because you are the one piece that could end this game he's been playing for so long. But your initial resistance annoyed him. He gave you the freedom to leave only because he hoped you would come back, and that's what you must pretend to want to do tonight. If you delay any longer than this night he will get tired of you and want to destroy you, and that will be very bad, to say the least. You must ensnare that little love-puppet of his. Distract him, and then once we've got them where we want them... " She grinned like a wolf, then dove in for a firm kiss.  
Todd smiled against her lips. "Yes, my love..."  
She pulled back, "Good! So, eggs, bacon, maybe some pancakes..." She let out a short piggy-snort, her belly grumbling for the morning's contents yet to come. "Then seduce the Antichrist and plot his downfall. Talk about having a full day ahead of us. Also you're making breakfast today, since I never got to judge if your cooking got any better. I want my eggs fried sunny side up, and they better be perfect."  
Todd grinned back at her, then pulled her into an almost dangerous dip. "Amazing super fluffy eggs with the perfect ratio of yolk for dipping toast in that'll be so good it'll make my girlfriend want to shag me later, coming right up!" He kissed her passionately, and then pulled her along to the kitchen.  
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Pepito was not having a good day. Or a good week. Hell, the whole damn year, and every second since Todd had started to stray, had all been pretty shitty for him. His dad was still being a dick about Todd, and to be honest, Pepito was starting to think he might be right.  
Which of course depressed the fuck out of him, and royally pissed him off. Pepito was sure that he could take anything he wanted from Todd and the rest of the world if he wanted to. And from the rest of the world, he did. He'd had plenty of attractive lovers of both sexes, and a couple that didn't even fit into the usual sex categories. He'd had royalty, models, actors, celebrities of all kinds - But none of them fulfilled him, none of them gave him the burning need he felt for his lifelong friend.  
Todd was different from all the rest. He needed Todd to freely give him his love, to willingly sign on it with the blood of his heart. He really hated to admit when his dad might be right, and it was always his first inclination to try to prove him wrong, but it was starting to seem like Todd really never would-  
His phone suddenly began to ring, snapping him out of his thoughts. He pulled out his cell, shocked to realize it was none other than the young man who tortured his heart who was calling him. He answered right away, "Todd?"  
"Hey amigo." Todd answered, his voice bright even though his heart was as dark as the bleakest bowels of hell. "How's it going? I just happened to have today off, and I realized it was Halloween. I don't have any plans today, but I'm sure you do, right? Got any crazy parties to go to?"  
"I have a few invitations lined up to attend if I felt like it. Did YOU want to go to a party tonight, mi amigo? I can take you anywhere you wanna go." He offered immediately, his hard feelings forgot.  
"Only if that's what you want to do! I just want to hang out with my best friend tonight. It's been a while since we could really spend some time, and it's been bugging me lately... I've missed you..." At the last part, Todd was tempted to roll his eyes, but he didn't, even though Pepito couldn't see him from the other end of the line.  
Pepito barely restrained the urge to break out into a grin. "You... Missed me?"  
"Of course! I know I've been busy a lot with work, and well, you know I'm an introvert, so I really needed my alone time... But, my alone time has been getting kind of, well, lonely. And yeah, I've been missing you, a lot... So, do you wanna go do something together tonight?" Todd finished awkwardly, but not in a suspicious kind of way. Not that Pepito, obsessed as he was with Todd, would have noticed or cared.  
Pepito was quiet for a few seconds on the other line before managing to sputter back, "Oh-Uh, yeah, of course! So, what did you want to do? I got some pretty wild parties we could go to..." But already Pepito had guessed that his introverted friend wouldn't be wild enough for that kind of crowd. "Or, if you don't mind, we can just hang out together... I can get us some booze and we can hit the streets and do whatever!"  
"Sure, sounds good to me!" Todd answered eagerly, although he already had his reservations about the alcohol. Pepito had been stealing from his Father's stash for years, but Todd had only ever had a sip of Rosemary's wine once, and remembered it didn't taste very good. Todd also wasn't 21 just yet, but it was hardly a challenge to the Antichrist to produce a fake ID.  
So they agreed to meet at a certain bar that night, where Pepito met Todd at the door with two shots of some fancy liquor that had bits of gold flakes in it. Todd looked at the decadent-looking drink oddly at first, "Is the gold really edible...?"  
"No, you'll die horribly if you drink it - PFT! HA!" Pepito let out a bark of a laugh as Todd gave him an uncertain stare. "Lighten up, amigo! Of course it's fine to drink! This is what you wanted to do, right? You wanted to get out tonight, didn't you?"  
"Well, y-yeah..." Todd lied, bracing himself by swallowing a breath. "Bottoms up!"  
They clinked their glasses and Todd forced himself to swallow the burning cinnamon-flavored liquid down in one gulp. Todd went to hand the glass back to Pepito, but instead of taking it, the Antichrist procured the fancy and expensive bottle of liquor and poured him another shot. Todd didn't really want to take any more, but he remembered Gaz's warning about getting on his good side, so he didn't protest, even after the third shot too.  
After Todd coughed down the last shot, a grinning Pepito had just gotten back from the bar's Jukebox, where he'd set the song 'Highway to Hell' to play. He was about to ask Todd to dance when a group of four rowdy, drunk women burst into the bar.  
"Oh my Goooood-!" One of them, a brunette who was hanging on to her friend's shoulder so that she wouldn't tip over, slurred. "That Haunted House was SOOO scary! It's a good thing we snuck some 'liquid courage' into the place, or else I might have pissed myself!"  
The blonde she was hanging on sniffed distastefully before snorting out a laugh, "Uh, Jessica, I think you DID piss yourself..."  
Todd stuck his tongue out in disgust, dearly hoping that Pepito wouldn't try to hook him up with any of the sloppy-drunk girls. But Pepito seemed to be at least as grossed out as Todd by them, and besides that, he had other plans on his mind.  
"I think I know the haunted house they were talking about." He mentioned as Todd snuck himself a glass of water. "It's definitely not a kiddy attraction, though. I hear it's so 'scary', you have to sign a waiver before you go in, and once you're in, they won't lead you out - You have to find your own way. It sounds like fun to me, but if it sounds too scary to you-"  
"It sounds fun!" Todd cut him off right away. "Lets do it!"  
Pepito blinked in surprise, "Are you sure, Todd? I've heard it's pretty intense. We can go find a normal hay maze if you'd prefer..."  
Todd continued to smile, his lips didn't even twitch downward, even though he'd had to quickly bury his fury over being treated like a child, again. He knew he ought to just go with whatever Pepito wanted like Gaz had told him to, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it this time. "You know... I think, if you're there, I should be able to handle this so-called 'scary' Haunted House."  
Pepito stared at him a few seconds more, then barked out a laugh. "Okay, amigo! Yeah, I guess standing next to the scariest thing in the world has got to make everything else less scary, right?"  
Todd's eyes flashed, and his smile stretched just a tad. "Exactly." He agreed, forgetting for just that moment that it was actually Gaz Membrane who was the scariest person on this planet they'd been born to, and that indeed, even Pepito seemed less scary compared to her.  
They headed out of the bar after Pepito took a few more shots, and headed through town until they got to the thirteen-story building where the 'haunting' was supposedly taking place. Sharp, black-painted fences surrounded the property, and the house itself was a dark shade of gray. But other than that and one solitary, mean-looking Jack-O-Lantern by the front door, there was no Halloween decorations, no cheap cotton 'spiderwebs' or scarecrow-witches. It basically just looked like a really tall, dark house.  
Pepito opened the front door without knocking, and Todd followed him in to find a man and a woman tending a front desk, as if it was a hotel. Pepito stepped up to them and pulled out his wallet. "Admission for two, please."  
Todd began to pull out his own wallet, but Pepito waved him off. The female attendant pulled out their waivers and began to explain as they signed them, "Alright gentleman, I trust you already know a bit about what you're getting into, but this is no ordinary Haunted House. Just down this hall you'll find an elevator that will take you to the top, thirteenth level. This is the only floor that the elevator will take you to. After that you're on your own. We will not come and get you no matter how much you might scream. You will each be given one flashlight, but the rest of the levels above this one are in total darkness. One of the rooms on each level will contain the staircase to the next level. Do be careful - It wouldn't be wise to simply barge into any of the rooms looking for the exit. We have many surprises hidden throughout."  
"Forgive me if I'm not exactly quaking in my spiky, buckled boots." Pepito rolled his eyes, handing his completed slip over.  
"No, but really - Don't just barge into the rooms, or you might be REALLY surprised-" The female attendant tried to insist.  
But Pepito continued to rudely dismiss her, "Yeah, yeah, we get it. Some of the doors lead to a dead drop. Oooh, SO scary!"  
Todd didn't chastise his 'friend' for his behavior. He simply handed in his waiver, and the male attendant led them to the elevator. He punched a code into a panel on the wall and the elevator doors opened. He motioned for them to step inside, and they did. He stepped inside with them and pressed another button inside, and Todd's stomach lurched as the small metal room began to rise.  
When they reached the thirteenth level, the doors opened and the attendant motioned for them to step off. They did, and the doors closed behind them, taking the attendant away. The hall they found themselves in was pitch black just as they'd been told, and they turned on their flashlights just as the light of the elevator disappeared behind them.  
They found themselves in another hall, with several doors. Red paint was spattered everywhere to simulate blood, along with some red hand-prints. Pepito 'pft'ed, "This place looks like it was decorated by kindergartners..."  
"Maybe the kind of kindergartners you've got in hell." Todd quipped 'jokingly'. He forgot to wonder how many of his hellish classmates and the other strange, horrible 'people' from his past had been the devil's demons in disguise.  
Pepito chuckled back, "Haha, that's true! But you know, kids can be evil too! I know you fight against acting on your own evil impulses Todd, but I also know you definitely still have them..." He went on more seriously, "You wanted to get back at those kids who hurt you when you were a boy. But I do admire you for not doing so..."  
Todd shrugged, "Well it's not like I had a choice, remember? I don't wanna be an insane possessed person who has to kill ALL the time."  
Pepito rolled his eyes, "Well yes, of course. But that was when a Waste Lock was needed. When a Waste Lock has been chosen, the Candidates can kill without worrying about the curse."  
"A Waste Lock was chosen?" Todd pretended to be surprised. "Do you know who it is?"  
The Antichrist nodded, "Your former coworker, Devi Devine. Her sudden withdrawal from work and relocation is obviously because Gaz has been controlling her, controlling who she kills and taking her sacrifices."  
Todd nodded and returned, "That makes sense... Except, well, why? What do you think Gaz is trying to accomplish doing all that?"  
"Well, we won't -really- know until we catch her, but my father and I strongly suggest it's because she wants to overthrow us and be the new ruler of the planet. She wants to take our powers and become the new Devil of this world."  
Todd nodded again seriously, resisting the urge to laugh in Pepito and Diablo's dumb, narcissistic face. He refused to let himself remember that the Gaz he knew and trusted was going to free the entire planet, give it back to rule itself, and then go on to try and do the same for another planet. "That makes perfect sense."  
Pepito nodded back just as seriously, and oh man it was difficult for Todd not to want to grin. "Gaz was apparently born with special powers that the vast majority of humanity will never know or even believe in. I hate to say it like this, it sounds super corny on Halloween, but she's basically a witch." Basically. Damn, Todd, keep it together, he mentally told himself... "Her brother, the original Waste Lock Candidate, was more like a regular human, but he was the one chosen. But for some reason, she offered to take his place, and even though she wasn't younger than him, because she was so much stronger than him, her brother's demon accepted her offer. It turned out to be a foolish move. The host turned out to be stronger than Phlegethon, and she trapped him and took his power. It was an impressive move, I'll admit. But she is NOT stronger than me or my dad. She'll see that very soon. It's just a matter of catching her. She's like a rat or a cockroach - She's quick to scurry around, but once we've got her under our boots, she's as good as dead."  
Oh, we'll see alright... To the back of Todd's mind that went. As much as he wanted to punch Pepito in the face for saying that about his wife, he wisely resisted and instead put on a small smile as he answered, "I guess that must be why she pretended to like me. To try and turn me against you. I'm so glad you warned me about her, Pepito. She's not at all what she said she was." She was everything and -more-...  
Pepito grinned and patted him firmly on the back. "Of course, Todd. That's what amigos... That's what hermanos are for!"  
Todd grinned back at him, an almost lupine kind of smile but Pepito just assumed it was for him. "Yeah! Hermanos!"  
As they went deeper down the hall, they checked the doors and looked in with their flashlights. Most of the doors at the top level were the fall-down kind, which they easily avoided. Finally at the end of the hall they found a door that led to a room. They shined a light inside. There was a truly horrible piece of 'work' inside - A fake dead body propped up onto a table.  
Todd knew right away that it was fake - He'd seen plenty of real dead bodies, after all. But it was a decent replica. The mannequin looked a lot like a real woman, albeit in rigor mortis, and the smell of the real pig's blood they'd stuffed and slathered the doll with smelled close to the same kind of rot produced by dead humans. Just beyond the prop, the entrance to the first staircase could be seen.  
"Man, that's disturbing..." The human remarked queasily right away, even though he actually wasn't that impressed, considering his experiences.  
Pepito, however, was haughty about it, and scoffed, "Oh please, this thing is so fake! I guess it would scare anyone who couldn't see all the obvious flaws, though. And I guess it kinda makes you think. Makes you wonder. How many real girls do you think were murdered by some sicko to perfect this fake dead girl? Or how many twisted bastards came in here, and instead of being grossed out when they saw it, probably popped a huge boner! HAHA!"  
Todd forced a smile on his face, even though it strained his muscles to perform it. The sickest fucker this room had ever seen was standing right in front of him. The sick fuck in question, however, simply went on, "It's sad to say, but more men than not get off to sick shit like that. I feel bad for normal human women. It's no wonder that once in a while a witch like Gaz pops up. The men would kill them off if they didn't have something to fear, and put them back in line. But Gaz is not a 'Good Witch', as the saying goes. She must be deluded into thinking my dad is the cause of all these problems because he's the 'Devil'. She must buy into that holier-than-thou bullshit, even though the churches and it's leaders are the evilest motherfuckers of all! I mean, just think about it, Todd: How is my dad supposed to be evil when he's the one that punishes bad people?"  
"Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense." Todd assured him... Even though said churches and religious leaders were mostly in cahoots with the devil, leading people astray and confusing and misleading them. Can't have a church without a devil to fear, after all. Hypocritical bastard. But Todd just forgot about that, and awkwardly side-stepped around the body and headed for the stairs. "Well, ready for the next level?"  
Pepito grinned back at him, "Ready when you are!"  
They descended down, and the room they arrived at had two more fake dead bodies, this time a couple of creepy-looking boy and girl children, on the floor in pools of blood, their throats slashed. They side-stepped around them too and headed out the door, and into the next hall.  
Again, most of the doors were dead drops, and then at the end of the hall there was a room of mirrors. Since none of the other rooms on this level could be accessed, it was obvious that the next staircase was beyond the maze of mirrors. It was actually kind of scary, in the dark with only their flashlights...  
As much as Todd hated to do it, he knew his current idea was too brilliant to pass up, and he really didn't want to get lost and run into anything (Including Pepito, who might try to trick and scare him) in this maze. So instead he asked his 'friend' just before they went inside, "Hey... Would it be okay to hold your hand? You know, so we don't get separated and and lost from each other in here?"  
Pepito's heart began to pound, just as Todd predicted it would. "Oh-Yeah, of course!" His ashen cheeks dusted with a blush, and he reached down and took Todd's proffered hand.  
They navigated their way through the mirrors, with Todd banishing his thoughts to the back of his mind, about how this night, and this weird haunted house - It was just too perfect a metaphor for the relationship he had with the man whose hand he was currently holding. The terror, the confusion, the feeling of being lost and trapped all at once... But it was okay. Gaz had shown him the way out of this. All he had to do was follow her, even when she wasn't there to lead him. He knew he could do it, because after everything they'd been through and what he'd learned from her, she would always be a part of him.  
Pepito pulled him along through their myriads of mirror reflections until they finally found the next staircase and descended to the next level. The room below had a trip-wire at the bottom of the stairs that set off a blood-curdling scream from a recorder hidden somewhere in the room. Todd jumped at the loud shriek after almost tripping over the wire, squee-ing along with it and clutching at Pepito's arms before he fell. It hadn't been intended, but Todd had to admit it turned out to his advantage, as Pepito grinned down at him and squeezed him first before letting him go.  
Todd let him and pretended to like it and they both headed out of the room and down the next hall. It was more of the same dead-drops, fake corpses, and screaming booby-traps for a few levels, and then suddenly as they were heading into a new hallway, somebody in a werewolf costume jumped out and howled at them. Pepito promptly punched the guy in the face, crumpling his werewolf mask, and knocking him out.  
Todd glanced back at the guy as they headed down the hall, feeling sorry for him. It was just his job, after all. But he knew he couldn't afford to show the stranger sympathy, he couldn't not pretend to be fine with Pepito's awful, violent behavior. Todd supposed the guy would have to be happy with still being alive this time next year.  
They only had a couple more levels to travel when they entered the newest hallway and found a girl dressed as a witch waiting nonchalantly halfway down the hall, smoking a cigarette. At first Todd was shocked to see her, because she kind of looked like Gaz from far away and in the dark, and he thought it was her. But he quickly realized that it wasn't Gaz after all, just a girl who kind of resembled her. Same hairstyle and similar body type, except, Todd noticed once he shined his light at her, she was missing one of her eyes. And besides that she was in general much less attractive and lively-looking than Gaz - She looked closer to the stereotype of an old, witchy hag.  
The girl covered her eye from the light he shined at her. "Whoa, dude, you mind? Woooo, I'm a scaaary witch, yadda yadda..." She took a drag on her cigarette and blew it out the side of her mouth in their general direction. She clearly didn't care much for her job.  
Pepito snorted in amusement at the disgruntled employee. "Oh, this is easily the best part of this bullshit haunted house so far! What's your name, my cycloptic sweetheart?"  
The girl growled at his crude words, and took a long drag of her nearly-spent cigarette, coughing out the smoke and stomping the butt out on the floor before she spat back at him, "My name's Sugar Plum-Tits McGumdropfarts for all you give a fuck."  
Pepito began to roar with laughter, and Todd was almost starting to wonder if this was actually Gaz in disguise, fucking with Pepito right under his nose. He wouldn't put it past her. But then suddenly the girl turned her glare towards Todd, and peered at him for a moment in recognition. "Hey... Fuck me. Are you Todd Casil?"  
Todd blinked in surprise as she guessed his name, and then it hit him very suddenly why this girl knew him and where he knew her - She was that little bitch from elementary school who had laughed her ass off at him being teased by the other boys, until a fly ball had beaned her in the back of the head and knocked one of her eyes right out of it's socket. "Oh... Yeah. Hey. How you been?"  
Just as abruptly as she had as a child, the petite little witch snapped and went from semi-normal to a hellish rage, "You FUCK. You fucking FUCK. I lost my fucking EYE because of YOU!"  
Todd rubbed the back of his head, "H-Hey, that's not true, I had nothing to do with that-"  
He hadn't gotten any further than that when the crazed lunatic suddenly lunged for him, her hands stretched out and ready to claw his eyes out too. But Pepito swiftly stepped in front of him and socked her in the face, in the one good eye she had, knocking her to the ground, where she clutched her former good eye and began to howl with pain, blinded. Pepito rolled his eyes and took Todd by the hand, leading him around the screaming girl and down the hall to the next level.  
When they finally emerged back in the lobby, Todd almost expected to find the police waiting for them after all the trouble Pepito had caused, and all the employees he had assaulted. But there were none, yet, and they quickly left the building before any were called.  
Once outside, Pepito remarked, "Well that was lame..."  
Todd shook his head, even though he secretly felt like agreeing with Pepito's whining. "It was fun! I'm glad we decided to go here, even after that crazy girl tried to attack me. Thanks for keeping her back, by the way. Man, I bet it's gotten late by now, though. Do you know what time it is?"  
Pepito pulled out his phone and checked, "Oh. Yeah. It's past midnight now..."  
Todd smiled patiently back at him, "I hate to cut our little date short, but I have work in the morning. But you'll walk me home, right?" He offered his elbow out to the Antichrist suggestively  
Pepito returned the smile and linked his arm with Todd's, leading him through town in the cold, crisp night until they got back to Todd's home. Once there, Pepito led him to the poor, and whistled as he remarked, "I almost forgot you lived in this creepy place. No wonder that haunted house was no big deal to you... I guess you've really grown up, Todd..."  
Really? He JUST noticed that? He was actually surprised that the twenty year old man in front of him could make it through a cheap Halloween haunted house? Todd mentally shelved his deep annoyance and pretended to be flattered instead. "Thanks amigo..."  
Pepito was reluctant to leave him right away, and stalled by shuffling his feet and asking, "So, I guess I'll go now..."  
Then Todd accomplished something very close to a miracle. After learning all he had about the spoiled little maniac before him, he didn't know how he managed to reach in and hug him like they were still old friends, like he still truly loved him instead of being sickened and repulsed by him. Like the son of a demon-bitch hadn't been trash-talking and plotting the murder of Todd's beloved wife all night. Todd squeezed him extra tight and didn't mention it when Pepito took a long whiff of his hair like a weird fucking pervert.  
Todd even let him stay a few seconds longer than he was sure he could stand before finally pulling back from Pepito's reluctant hold. "Let's do something else again sometime soon..." But not too soon, hopefully...  
Pepito grinned and reluctantly let Todd go, remarking before he left, "You know... My dad was wrong about you, Todd. He told me to give up on you. But... I know you'd never give up on me."  
Those words stabbed at Todd's heart for some reason he couldn't yet guess at. He watched wordlessly as Pepito walked away from his doorstep, down the street and eventually out of sight, then returned inside of his home.  
He heated himself some leftover spaghetti to soak up the alcohol he had drunk earlier, and also to keep him awake until Gaz got home. She revealed herself just as Todd had rolled up his first forkful of noodles, stealing the utensil away from him and taking the bite for herself.  
"Hey..." Todd chided, but he was clearly amused and glad to see her. "How did everything go? I notice you've got quite a bit of blood on you..."  
Gaz shrugged as she gave him back his fork, wiping a few drops of the red liquid off her cheek with the back of her sleeve. It only smudged the red color, though. "Eh, only a splash or two. But everything went very much according to plan. I just gave Devi's demon a midnight snack. Oh, and Asmodeus is no more." She mentioned it very nonchalantly, as if killing an immensely powerful demon was hardly even worth mentioning.  
Todd whistled, impressed and a little turned on despite how tired he was. "Nice work, babe! You're so hot when you rain doom upon your enemies."  
Gaz grinned at her sweet young lover and the sweeter-still mouth he had on him. "Finish your s'ketti, you smooth talker. I'm gonna to take a shower, wash all this gross demon blood off, and then you can meet me in your bed, so I can cleanse you, too..."  
Todd flashed a grin back at her, finding it hard to care about the spaghetti anymore. "Are you sure you wouldn't mind if I joined you in the shower?" He knew Gaz's touch would purify him without any soap and hot water needed, but it still sounded like fun.  
Gaz raised an eyebrow back at him, then burst into a strange little giggle before beckoning him with a curled finger. "Come on, dirty boy. Let's get you clean~"  
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Todd woke up early the next morning naked and next to Gaz, his new favorite way to wake up. She was already awake herself, waiting for Todd to open his eyes and stroking his hair.  
As soon as she noticed he was awake as well, she inquired, "How did everything go last night?"  
Todd hummed in thought, pressing his cheek against her bosom as she played with his hair. "Everything went according to our plans... But, there is one thing I've been wondering about..." He added uncertainly.  
"What is it, dear." She asked him patiently.  
"It's, something Pepito said before he left last night... He said his dad told him to give up on me, but that he knew I'd never give up on him... Why do you think Diablo would tell Pepito to give up on me if he wants me so badly?"  
Gaz chuckled, "That's easy. Todd, what's the only surefire way to get a teenager to do what you want them to do?"  
Todd blinked, and barely had to think about it for a second before the answer came to him, "Pretend you don't want them to do it..."  
Gaz grinned, "Bingo."  
"But wait..." Her husband insisted, "You said that we had a human soul, and a parasitic soul... Are you sure Pepito doesn't have a human soul that can be saved? I trust you Gaz, I just need to know..."  
She nodded and wrapped her arms around his back. "I know. My sweet, angelic Todd, always trying to save as many people as he can. But I'm sorry my love, this is the one time you cannot. I already told you, Pepito is a demon in a human meat puppet. Even if he had a human soul, he chose his side a long time ago. He supports his father. If he ever truly loved you for who you really are, he would have emulated you and defied his father. But he didn't, did he? He joined him in his wars and campaigns, and he would have never done anything else because Diablo's will is Pepito's will. Do you understand now, Todd?"  
"Yes, Gaz. I understand... I'm okay with it." He knew she already knew the whole truth though, so he decided to just admit to it. "I just, don't know why I'm still so sad about it..."  
"It's completely fine for you to feel that way." She assured him. "He made you feel that way, just like he made you so terrified and confused as a child, now he'd trying to make you feel sad without him, trying to get you to doubt me and come back to him. But I promise, you'll feel much better once he's truly gone. I'm sorry you can't save Pepito, but you'll be saving everyone else on the entire planet, including me, and Devi... And Johnny."  
He pulled away from her embraced and looked down at her, "Gaz, how much do you -really- know about Johnny...?"  
"Literally everything. Which we'll eventually get to in due time. But for now, I'll just tell you what you really want to know about him - Yes, he's got a part to play when the time comes to take on Diablo. All the Waste Lock Candidates do..."  
"But wait," Todd interrupted, "How is he still a candidate if he already fulfilled his duty as Waste Lock? Pepito said he was like a 'battery running out of juice'... And wouldn't his demon want a younger host by now?"  
Gaz listened as patiently as she could to his questions, even though she already knew what he was going to ask. "Because, I put a spell on him, trapping his demon in Johnny's body so it couldn't go take another host. Johnny's fated to be stuck with the worst job out of all of us, but he's never known anything else, so he'll be fine with it. Well, he will be once I tackle that grumpy old bull down and tame him..."  
"Huh?" Todd blurted out, visibly confused.  
His wife explained, "My stupid brother went and flew his ship into a black hole a while back ago, and I had to beg the eternal darkness to let him go alive. Black holes are the ultimate predators. They either grind you into bits and pieces of yourself to be rearranged in another universe, or they let you go somewhere. But nobody just 'escapes' from a black hole. So I had to make some promises to the void. One of them was to fall in love, which I thought was gonna be a pain in the ass... Until I met you."  
Todd smiled broadly at that part, and Gaz smacked a kiss on his lips before continuing, "Another was to 'Tame every beast that lives in darkness and light'... Well, Johnny is one of those 'beasts'. In fact, he's probably one of the fiercest beasts I'll ever have to face... Don't worry, I know can take him." She added confidently when he gave her a worried look. "With your help. But like I said, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it, which won't be for a few more months. Suffice to say though, Johnny's one of the beasts that was born to and has lived in darkness his whole life..."  
"Alright..." Todd accepted her answers just as his stomach suddenly started to growl, reminding him that he had work soon and needed to make breakfast. "Mm. Were my eggs satisfactory last time, dear? Shall I make us some more?"  
"Your eggs were perfect, sweetheart." She returned. "But I'll make breakfast today. You can make it the next morning. And I'll make it the morning after that. Balanced and fair, that's a good way to run a marriage and a household, don't you agree?"  
"I do~" He returned, kissing her hand before they got up to start the next day of the rest of their lives.  
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Days and then weeks and then months passed by in Todd's life. Some days he'd spend entertaining Pepito, pretending to still be his friend and laughing at all his sick jokes. Still letting him win at the games Todd knew he could beat him at, still pretending not to notice or care when the Antichrist tried to sneak a whiff of his hair or brush his skin against him. It wasn't always easy though - Sometimes his skin crawled in disgust and he wanted to yank away, but he fought the impulse for his own sake, not to mention the whole world.  
He even pretended not to care anymore about Pepito's worst habit - His disgusting smoking. When he was a teenager Todd would avoid him whenever he lit up, but now he calmly let the poisonous fumes cloud around him without care. He even accepted when Pepito suggested he try smoking a cigarette himself, if only because he knew Gaz could draw the toxins out of his body later, and soon had begun smoking them every time he went to visit, much to Pepito's delight. Poisoning a virginal mind and body was a demon's favorite past-time.  
Then he went home to Gaz, and the clouds of smoke over both his lungs and his mind disappeared each time she gave him his welcome home kiss. They made each other delicious, healthy meals and sat down at the table to eat and talk together, like a real family, the kind Todd had never known before. They snuggled together when they were tired, and when they had a bit of extra energy to spare, they worked together on the house, with Gaz adding her own cutesy-gothic style to the decor of the rooms she worked on. Todd refused to remind himself that her paintings on the walls would be a reminder of her, once she left. He refused to think about that part any more than he had to.  
One day, when Todd got home from work, Gaz was waiting for him in the living room, sitting on the couch and looking down at her lap. She looked distracted and a little bit disturbed, which of course worried her husband. So he inquired, "Are you feeling alright, dear?"  
Crossing her arms over her chest and doubling over slightly, she shook her head. "Not really, sweetheart. I've been feeling a bit unwell the last couple of weeks. I've been sick to my stomach every morning, cramping up, and my breasts have been unusually tender..."  
Oblivious at first, Todd tried to be sympathetic, "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, babe. Why don't I get you a heating pad and a nice cup of-Wait." Gaz had started to grin, and it very abruptly hit home with him that her symptoms were awfully specific. "Are you-Did we-?"  
"We did." She answered, getting up from the couch and throwing her arms around him. He hugged her back, tight but not too tight, mindful of the shared life that was now growing between them. However, after only a few seconds, Gaz pulled away, and she once more had that distracted, worried look on her features.  
Just as worried by what could possibly be troubling his terribly powerful lover, Todd immediately asked her, "What's wrong, Gaz?"  
She took a step back from him, and reached down to rub the right side of her still-flat stomach. "I've known since the day of my own birth that I would one day have a daughter, a bright and beautiful girl that will change this world for the better. And sure enough, she's there, just as I always knew she would be..."  
Todd stared down at her stomach in awe and wonder. He trusted Gaz's precognition was just as accurate as any ultrasound, and he was fascinated to know that his child - His daughter - Was slowly growing deep inside of her...  
But then Gaz mentioned, "There's... Just one thing I didn't see coming though..."  
Todd looked up at her with wide, inquiring eyes. She in turn smiled assuringly down at him, and answered his silent question by moving her left hand over the left side of her stomach. "...Him."  
Her husband's wide eyes somehow managed to get even bigger. "W-What? There's TWO? We're having TWINS?!"  
Gaz smirked and shrugged. "Yup. Didn't see that one coming. Can't really say I'm -that- surprised though. Twins do run in my family..."  
"Does it change anything for us?" He asked carefully. He was just as glad to know that he was having a son as when he'd learned he was having a daughter, but he was a little bit worried about Gaz's sudden short-sightedness.  
At first his wife didn't answer him. Her eyes glazed over for a moment, seeing something far, far away that no other human eyes could see. Then she shook her head out of it, as if waking up from a trance. "A little bit... But like I said before - We'll burn that bridge when we get to it. First we have to make sure we've got a world to bring these kids into. Then we can worry about the kids themselves..."  
"We can do it." Todd assured her, bending down to his knees and laying his ear against her stomach. All he could really hear for now was Gaz's stomach gurgling, but he knew that beneath that, two precious hearts were beating.  
Gaz hugged his head against her body. "I know, sweetie. We've gotten this far already, and one way or another, we're going to finish this... And hey, look on the bright side - When you're trapped in the bowels of hell, there's no where to go but up!"  
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	13. Chapter 13

The Jaegermeister's Pet  
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It was mostly more of the same throughout the months to come, the only thing that changed was that every time Todd went to see Pepito, he hated him more and more. Every time he saw his face it reminded him that he was losing some of what precious little time he had left to spend with Gaz. Every time he had to listen to Pepito's bullshit, and smoke his sickening cigarettes, and put up with his desperate touches, his putrid breath always nearby enough to smell it.  
The only thing that made it worth it was getting to go home to Gaz. He finally felt like he had a true family with her. She eventually even brought her father over one night to meet Todd over a quick dinner, before he had to return to his work. Todd had to agree with his wife that he wasn't the most likeable man, though. He was a little pompous and talked about his work the entire time, half of which was far beyond Todd's comprehension.  
When he left, Todd remarked to Gaz, "I'm surprised he had nothing to say to me. No questions for the man that married his daughter?"  
Gaz shrugged, "Well, I listened to him sometimes when I was still a kid, but he's never really been able to tell me what to do unless I agreed to it. Since I became an adult, he kinda just leaves me alone now. He knows he can't stop me. He made me, but I don't owe him anything. Or to my mother, either. My life is mine to do with what I want. I just happen to -want- to save her world."  
Todd nodded in understanding. He was no different from anyone else in Gaz's life in that respect - Her destiny was her own and he couldn't force her to stay with him. He wished so badly that she would, but he would not even let himself voice such a selfish request. He was lucky to have any time with her at all, so he forgot about the heartbreak yet to come, and loved her as much as he could in the meantime.  
Everything was perfect as long as they were together. Well, everything except one thing. It nagged in the back of Todd's mind occasionally, but he always quickly shoved the thought aside, so not to spoil his time with Gaz. She was obviously already aware of the "JC" situation, and knew even more about it than him. So he focused on more interesting things, like the way Gaz had begun craving strange foods, like peanut butter, which she normally didn't care for, and the way she hadn't dyed her naturally black hair lately because the dye might be bad for the babies.  
But then with no warning, the day he knew would someday come had arrived. Gaz was cuddling with him on the couch, sitting on his lap with her legs stretched across the couch, while he had his propped up on the coffee table. Ironically, they were watching a scary movie about a serial killer when the real life nightmare walked in through the front door.  
Todd realized who it was just a second before he came in, because he heard the keys jingling and unlocking the door. There was only one person besides Todd himself who had a key to his house. He also suddenly realized that he hadn't told Johnny about getting back together with Gaz, and the anti-social homicidal maniac would very likely be surprised to find them in such an intimate position. And if there was one thing Todd would bet on, it was that Johnny probably didn't like being surprised.  
"Hey Squee," He announced as he came in, holding up a dead squirrel. "I've got something for..." He trailed off and dropped the squirrel as he realized that Todd was not alone tonight. After an awkward pause he managed to finish the thought, "You..."  
Neither of them liked the look that Johnny was giving the two of them. The most obvious feeling on his face was disgust, but there was a good amount of slowly building rage behind that too. Gaz wasn't going to get up at first, until Todd gently nudged her and cleared his throat. Then she finally complied, although it did take some effort to heft herself up - She was a bit over five months along, and with twins on the way, her movements were a little more sluggish than before.  
"So, who's this, Todd?" Johnny went on to inquire seriously, giving Gaz a look that read very clearly that he did not like her. Todd couldn't know it, but the first sight of Gaz inspired a terrific rage inside of Johnny, his unique reaction to seeing this particular Waste Lock Candidate. It was only the fact that he was no longer completely insane that prevented him from giving in to his unnatural rage and attacking her on the spot, but he was currently wrestling with the urge, and losing.  
As soon as her weight was off of him, Todd got up to his feet too, and stood next to Gaz. "This is Gaz Membrane, Johnny. Remember, I told you about her last time?"  
Johnny did remember, but that only made him even angrier at her. She was the one who had hurt Todd, broken his heart and left him all alone. Now the only thing that was keeping him from lunging and tearing at her was the fact that, just beneath the almost overwhelming rage, there was also a healthy amount of instinctive fear about the girl. After Devi had kicked his ass so many years ago, he didn't underestimate his opponents so readily anymore, especially females. Especially -this- female, who was staring at him, intense but calm, almost completely unimpressed by the fact that a strange man had come into the house. "I thought you broke up with her..." He mentioned finally, sulking and seething.  
"I did." Todd confirmed awkwardly, and more than a little nervous. "But we got back together. And, uh, we kinda got married, too!" He reached down and look Gaz's hand in his, solidifying without saying it, whose side he was ultimately going to be on. But he also gave Johnny a big smile, trying to convey to him that he was happy, and that he hoped Johnny would be happy for him.  
Johnny just couldn't find it in himself to feel that way, right away. He grit his teeth so hard it started to make his gums bleed, which made Todd's smile slip into a pained grimace. "Well I should hope so, if that is presumed to be your loin-monster inside of her - Or is she just fat?" He inquired rudely, not even trying to hide the displeasure in his tone.  
It only unnerved him more that the young woman didn't even twitch with the slightest offense at his words. She was staring at him as if her were a bug, or so it seemed in his paranoid mind. Todd was the one that actually scolded him, "Hey, that was mean, Johnny! Yes, it is my -children- inside of her! We're having twins and we're very happy about it, so can you please just-"  
"NO! FUCK, NO! DON'T YOU GET IT, SQUEE?! GOD, DAMNIT-!" Johnny suddenly exploded, no longer able to hold back the deluge of rage raining down on him. "SHE'S TRICKED YOU SOMEHOW! SHE'S GOING TO HURT YOU AGAIN! RRR-!"  
He suddenly let out a feral, inhuman growl, and at the very same time, Gaz coolly commanded her lover, "Todd. Table."  
Johnny lunged after her and Todd obeyed his wife's order in just the nick of time, kicking the coffee table upright and then kicking it again, right into Johnny's path. Not having expected Todd to become the outright ninja master that he'd apparently transformed into, Johnny was shocked into stopping in his path, blocked by the table. Then Gaz had suddenly gone from sluggish to unpredictably speedy, kicking the coffee table against Johnny's chest and sending him flying backwards and onto the floor.  
Johnny ripped the table off of him as quickly as possible, but Gaz had already given Todd his next orders, "Pin him down. It's for his own safety." She added, knowing that her husband would be reluctant to hurt this man, who he considered to be a friend.  
His trust in her was infallible, and Todd obeyed, climbing on top of the man he normally feared to touch at all without express permission, and pinning his arms down roughly at his sides. Johnny of course struggled as hard as he could against his grip, but to both their surprise, Todd had become considerably physically stronger than the shorter, skinnier, older and less well-nourished man.  
Gaz calmly walked around the two of them until she was standing on the other side of Johnny's head. She bent down, and then she reached down, and laid her hands across both sides of Johnny's head. As soon as her skin touched his, his entire body went tense and stiff but slightly shaky. He was no longer struggling against Todd, but from how it looked to the younger boy, it seemed like Johnny was now struggling against his own body. His own mind.  
That was indeed exactly what was happening. Gaz was shaking a bit too, fighting to keep control over his mental thrashings. But to as powerful a witch as she, the mental throes of this scared, weakened creature was barely more impressive than a fish wriggling and whipping about on the end of a hook. Now that he was caught by her, his only choices were to either calm down and accept the leash she was about to present to him, or struggle until he killed himself.  
"Johnny. Stop fighting and listen to me." She instructed him calmly. "I have something for you. Something I think you'd like to know. I know where you came from. I know how you got here. I know all the things about your past that you've forgotten. Would you like to know?"  
Todd's grip on Johnny's arms slackened in surprise at what Gaz had just said. He didn't try to push against Todd again, so he climbed off of him and sat next to them instead. Johnny seemed to be staring at the ceiling, but there was a lot more going on behind those eyes. His mind was racing - Could she be telling the truth? And if she was, did he really want to know what she could tell him? He remembered so little, but so much of it was just terrible.  
However, the curiosity was almost as overwhelming now as his rage had been. Who was he, where had he come from - Could she really tell him the answers to such massively important questions? Slowly, he struggled to force his answer out of his mouth, "HN... Y-Yes...!" He just hoped he didn't live to regret it.  
Gaz took a deep breath, and let out a melancholy sigh. She was suddenly inside of Johnny's mind, able to see what was hidden in his tortured memory. He was seeing things again, this time as they had really been, and not just how he had perceived them, through the haze of his insanity. Todd could not see what they were seeing, but he paid close attention to Johnny's face, and the various expressions it was switching between - Mostly grimaces of fear and anger, and the occasional mad grin.  
First he remembered the kids, at school. Teasing him. Mocking him. Judging him. He had always remembered that most clearly. How they shoved him and kicked him and called him 'Noodle Boy', because he was so skinny. But then... He went home.  
Home. He'd never thought of that before, surprisingly. Or of his mother or his father. They were like an indistinguishable blur in his mind's eye. But now, everything was suddenly coming into focus. He was walking down the same street he always walked down, to this same house. It only looked a little less shitty then when he remembered living in it.  
"Wait..." Johnny strained to grind out, his eyes glazed over, just as Gaz's were. "Why'm... Why am I... Still in this house...?"  
"You've always lived in this house, Johnny." Gaz answered aloud for both him and Todd. "Don't you remember now? Your mother gave birth to you here. She had no other choice, because your father was the man that kidnapped her, held her here against her will, and raped and tortured her until he killed her..."  
As she narrated aloud, Johnny saw it all playing like flashes of a terrible movie, like a nightmare before his eyes. He was a little boy, cowering in the corner, not looking, but hearing what was going on. It was beyond sickening. Something that would ensure that whoever went through it would be scarred from sexual contact for the rest of their lives. The man did those horrible things to his mother every few days. He hated it so much, but that was also the only times the man brought food with him. So Johnny and his poor captive mother learned not to say anything about the torture that transpired, lest they be denied their life-saving meals.  
His mother usually treated Johnny well because he was her only companion, but there was a few times when she took out her frustrations on him and resented him openly. She couldn't really be blamed though - Every time the man visited her, his violence grew a little more each time, and his mother got weaker and weaker, in both body and spirit. Finally one day, when Johnny was only five, the man went too far and choked his mother to death.  
When Johnny got a little older, for some reason the man decided to start making him go to school. Johnny didn't know it, but there were a few other children living trapped with their mothers there, fellow victims of the same madman, who had built parts of the subterranean prison with his father, just as his father had in turn build parts of it with his father, the sicko who started it all.  
He didn't care about those children at all though, because they were all girls. Johnny was the first and only boy he'd ever been bore, which at once inspired some small tenderness from the monster, but mostly a lot of resentment. He felt emasculated by the fact that out of six pregnancies, only one had been a boy. He took it out far worse on the girls, most of which died by his hand when they were still very little. But Johnny wasn't spared either. He only got to leave to go to school, but the man had threatened to find him and kill him if he ever tried to run away, or tell anyone about the abuse. He told him that if he didn't die by his hands, he would never feed Johnny again, and let him die a slow, terribly painful death of starvation. He made sure the child got enough beatings and days without food to realize how serious the threat was.  
Johnny in turn tended to take the aggression and frustration out on his classmates, who naturally did not like him for it and banded up to ridicule him. He was hopelessly awkward and an outcast from day one, and the only reason Johnny even liked going to school at all was to get away from the man, and for the school breakfasts and lunches, which he always practically inhaled.  
When he got home from school, though, the man would lock him up in that same room he'd always lived in, that same room his mother died in. That room with a small hole in the wall on the left side from the entrance, where Johnny had learned led to another room. A room where another woman and a girl lived.  
The woman died when the girl was young too. Besides her mother and her torturer, Johnny was the only other soul this girl had ever spoken to. The girl told Johnny her name was Jenny.  
Johnny told Jenny about the things he read about in school, and she was always a captive audience, his being the only word of the outside world that she'd ever known. She listened to everything he had to say with rapture, even when he complained about the kids who were mean to him. Her childlike mind assured his that he was the best person in the world, and that he didn't deserve their cruelty.  
Johnny and Jenny were the best of friends, because they were the only friends they had in the whole world, back then. Johnny hated hearing it whenever the man came to torture Jenny. He wanted so badly to yell at him to stop it, but he knew it would only make things worse for her. The only thing he could do for her was to ask her when it was all over, "Are you okay, Jenny?" She had always either assured him that she was, or cried to let him know that she wasn't.  
Then one day, when Johnny was thirteen years old, something happened. The man came home very drunk. He tortured Jenny, then came in and beat Johnny. When he was done smacking him around, the man stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. But he was so drunk, he forgot to lock it like he normally did.  
When Johnny realized what had happened, he couldn't resist taking a cautious peek outside. The man wasn't in the hall. He must have gone upstairs. He jumped to take the rare chance that had presented itself, and walked over to the door to Jenny's room. The man had left her door open as well, but she hadn't discovered it yet.  
Johnny hesitantly opened the door, and at first Jenny gasped in fright as she saw him peek in. To pacify her fears, he quickly informed her, "Jenny, it's me, Johnny..."  
She took a breath of relief, "You scared me. I thought it was Mr. Chavez again..."  
They were both scared of being found, but they didn't want to go back to be separated by the walls again, they were so glad to finally see and touch each other. Jenny held both of Johnny's hands for a while, swinging them left and right and smiling, a smile that was missing a few teeth, but was still the prettiest smile Johnny had ever seen. Even with the bruised eye and cheek, hers was the prettiest face he'd ever seen.  
Jenny led Johnny to some sit on her bed, and she brought him over a strange toy that had been sitting on a desk - A figurine of a fat little boy holding up a hamburger. It was the toy from a Happy Kids Meal that the man had brought her once - One of only a handful of toys in the whole room, which was mostly barren, and one of her only possessions. "Here," She told him generously. "I want you to have this..."  
Though he'd been going to school, there was a good deal of his childhood education that Johnny hadn't been learning properly. He'd learned how to read and do math and to memorizes things, but he wasn't quite as interested in learning manners and being nice to others. He didn't thank her for the gift, but he smiled to show her he was pleased by it.  
Quite suddenly, Jenny, who one must remember had been severely abused, acted on an impulse and reached in, grabbed Johnny by the shoulders, and pressed her lips to his.  
It felt good in that moment to Johnny, so he allowed her to continue. Neither of them knew. It wasn't their fault. They had no idea they were half-siblings, or even what siblings were.  
But the man knew. He had come back when he'd suddenly remembered his error, discovered the two children as they were, and literally went berserk. He barged in and grabbed Johnny by the shoulder, ripping him away from her and throwing him across the room. The he took off his belt, and struck Johnny several times with it. He would have kept hitting him, but he lost his grip on the belt and it flew out of his hands and hit Johnny, who was cowering in the corner, one last time.  
After that the man refocused his attention and stormed upon Jenny next, who started to scream as he came after her, until his much bigger hand clamped over her mouth and nose, muffling her. Then, like a true monster, he savagely began to bash the poor child's head against the wall, three, four times, until her screams became dazed, quiet moans of fading pain and advancing darkness.  
It happened so quickly, Johnny barely had time to process it. But it didn't take very long at all for the poor boy to lose his mind. In fact, it happened in an instant, the very instant he saw Jenny's eyes roll into the back of her head, and her body go slack. Then he just snapped.  
He picked up the belt and ran after the man, and somehow managed to loop it around his neck. He'd never fought back before, but every blow that had ever been landed on him built up an ocean of rage, and now a tidal wave was rushing over him. The man wasn't expecting him to fight back, he was still staring at the life leaving the girl's eyes, when Johnny had suddenly roped the belt around his neck, and began to squeeze with every inch of strength he had in him.  
The man was drunk and off-balance, so the surprise attack was surprisingly effective despite Johnny being quite a bit smaller than him. At the same time, Johnny was no longer a very small child, and he was desperate. He knew the man would kill him, if he didn't kill him first.  
The man struggled, but Johnny held on to his grip for dear life, slowly choking the life out of him. What felt like ten times as many minutes later, consciousness left the man and he slumped over onto the floor, his face a sickening shade of purplish-red.  
But he wasn't dead yet, and until he was, Johnny knew he wasn't safe. The man had plenty of rooms with stockpiles of various weapons and torture devices, but he had none of them on him, in this particular room. The only thing on his person was a set of keys Johnny could see protruding from his pant's pocket.  
The boy hurried to do what he had do, what his fragmented mind was commanding him to do. He grabbed the keys, found the sharpest one, and began to stab and hack at the man's deeply bruised and now bleeding throat with every bit as much fury and savagery as his demonic father had been capable of.  
Eventually Johnny threw the keys aside and began to tear at the wounds with his his own hands, digging in with his own fingernails and ripping his flesh apart, watching as his lifeblood began to gush out of him, until he was finally fully convinced that the man was dead. Then he stopped, and looked down at the blood covering his hands, on the floor, pooling under his knees and soaking his clothes. The chunks of human meat underneath his nails. The sensation that these hands would never feel clean in this reality ever again. But the sickest realization... Was that it felt so, damn, GOOD...!  
"NN...NNOOOO-!" Johnny suddenly shouted out loud, his arms flailing outwards as he began to panic. Todd had already been shaking by the end of Gaz's narration, but when Johnny lashed out, he jumped back outright.  
"Todd, hold him down. Calm him." His wife commanded him, and he quickly cast aside his horror at the story he had just heard, and pinned down Johnny's flailing arms.  
"Johnny..." Todd was still shaking, but he managed to keep his homicidal friend's struggling to a minimum. "Johnny, shh, calm down. It's okay now. It's not your fault. It was never your fault..."  
They were both realizing that at the same time, Johnny was just having a much harder time accepting it. It only made sense. But Todd wasn't going to let him go through with it alone. Because he wasn't alone in this, not this time.  
"NO. NO!" Johnny continued to growl out, thrashing so much that spit was flying from his mouth and dribbling down his chin. "I SHOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING SOONER! I SHOULD HAVE SAVED HER-"  
"THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD DO!" Todd suddenly shouted back down at Johnny. The maniac had always been more emotional and irrational than he'd like to admit to, but Todd wasn't about to let him destroy himself over this, which he would undoubtedly do if left to solve it on his own. "You couldn't save her! You were just a little boy, Johnny! You were just a little boy and you were abused terribly! You needed a friend more than most people, and he killed the person you thought was your only friend! But I'M your friend now too, Johnny! Remember? I'm your friend and I want you to get better!"  
"NOTHING CAN MAKE THIS BETTER!" Johnny heaved against him, the movement frighteningly strong and sudden. "NOTHING WILL EVER MAKE IT BETTER-!" He was shouting so loud, so unrestrained, that some of his spit flew on Todd's cheek. The younger man just ignored it.  
"I know, Johnny..." He told him, much more calmly this time. "Nothing will ever make my childhood better, and nothing will make yours better either. You can only worry about making YOURSELF better. But you CAN do it. I KNOW you can. I'm your friend and I KNOW you can be better than you have been..."  
Johnny opened and closed his mouth slowly several times, before muttering, "H-How...?"  
This time Gaz took over, very softly massaging the side of Johnny's forehead. "Your mind is full of chaos and disorder, Johnny. This demon inside of you has been mucking around with your memories ever since the night you were forced to kill your father. It's because you're like us. Me and Todd, we were chosen, just like you. I know you've spoken to the devil before, Johnny, and he told you what you were, didn't he?"  
Slowly Johnny nodded in response to her inquiry, and admitted in a reluctant grumble, "'M like a fuckin' universal toilet flush..."  
Gaz raised an eyebrow. "Not quite so eloquently put, but basically, yes. When you were forced to kill your father, you were forcibly chosen to be the Waste Lock. This demon has always been inside of you, but when that happened, it was allowed to go free. It has been controlling you ever since that day, forcing you to kill and feed it the blood of your victims-"  
"NO! NO, DAMN IT, NO!" Johnny began to fight back again, but with two against one he stood no chance, and could only continue to howl, "I DID THOSE THINGS! ME! I'M IN CONTROL OF ME, NOT ANYBODY ELSE, ME-!" It was more the demon speaking than the real Johnny, trying to convince the poor cursed man of it's lies.  
"No, Johnny..." Todd sniffled, staring down right into his friend's eyes as he spoke. Seeing the tears welling there, Johnny stopped and listened to him. "I know why you want so desperately to believe that. Anyone who had that much control taken away from them would want to try to take it back..."  
"Yes." Gaz agreed. "But you can't. You can't take control back from your demon by yourself, it's too strong, and it's been with you for too long. But that's not the case with me... Johnny, have you ever wished that someone could shut you off and fix you?"  
Johnny's eyes went wide, and he stared up at the girl, morbidly curious. She went on, "I can do it, if you'll let me. The demon won't be gone completely until we destroy Diablo, but I can put a muzzle and a leash on him, to keep him from snapping at your heels all the time, figuratively speaking. Then, if you help us defeat Diablo, our demons will be gone for good. We'll all be free. Me, Todd, you... And Devi."  
Somehow his eyes managed to go even wider, and hoarsely he whispered back at her, "D-Devi...?"  
"She'll never forgive you for what you did to her." Gaz quickly confirmed. "But it's the only way to make things right. To make things even, fair. You almost took her life away from her, Johnny, so now you need to help us give it back to her."  
Johnny slowly nodded. He was starting to accept what they were saying, but part of him, the demonic part, was still struggling against them. It was telling him - She's lying. She's trying to trick you. No one can fix you, NO ONE!  
But then he glanced over at Todd. The younger man's eyes were full of pity and sorrow, but beneath that, Johnny could somehow see clearly that there was hope there too. He swallowed thickly against the lump in his throat and whispered, "Are you sure... Can you really, fix me...?"  
"With a little time." Gaz assured him. "If you'll let me. I already started this spell a while ago. When I first touched this house, and saw it's past, I left a spell on the door-frame that passed onto you when you later came to visit. Your demon would have otherwise killed you and gone on to a younger host by now. Naturally we couldn't let that happen. But now, I need your permission to finish the spell..."  
Todd begged him, "Please let her do it, Johnny. I know she can help you, just like she's been helping me and Devi..."  
The tears that had been gathering in Johnny's eyes spilled over the corners and ran down over Gaz's hands and into his hair. Finally he submitted to them with a sigh, "...Do it."  
One she'd been given his permission, Gaz didn't waste a single second more. She leaned down and pressed her forehead to Johnny's, and between them, time had become frozen.  
There was nothing to be seen in this part of Johnny's mind. It was in complete darkness. But this was far from the first time Gaz had traveled through pitch blackness, and her mind's eye was quite used to it. She could see exactly where she was going, and exactly what she was looking for.  
The demon snarled and backed away from her as she advanced upon it. Gaz, who was now in the form of her ten-year-old-self, actually -skipped- towards the demon with only the utmost of supreme confidence, even singing part of a tune, "Five, six, pick up Styx~"  
On the outside, Todd was keeping Johnny's arms pinned down this time. A good thing too, because very suddenly, only barely a second to him after Gaz had laid down her head, an extremely grotesque tendril of what looked like black sludge protruded from Johnny's mouth, trying to get away.  
Todd's head flew back from the tendril in shock and disgust, but Gaz didn't move at all, and in the next second, two more glowing tendrils came out of Johnny's mouth, one purple and one purplish-red, both more slender and agile than the disgusting, thick black one. They wrapped around the black, sluggish tendril and dragged it back down inside of Johnny, who clamped his lips together and seemed to be barely resisting the urge to projectile vomit.  
Eventually Johnny's heaves and spasms calmed down, and after that, he and Gaz went still for a moment or two. Todd didn't make a single peep until Gaz finally took a deep breath and moved away from Johnny. When her hair moved back from his eyes, Todd could see that the homicidal maniac had fallen unconscious.  
Gaz wobbled a little at she sat back upright, but she caught herself quickly, and commented, "Well. That was definitely a head-rush. But, we did it again~"  
Todd grinned for her, for all of them. "You're doing so great, babe. I know you can do anything you set your mind to."  
She gave him an appreciative grin. "Thanks, sweetie. Now let's move this big lug's body to a bed so he can get some rest. We'll start his kennel training when he wakes up in the morning..."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
It was completely unlike Johnny, but he slept throughout the entire night. Todd and Gaz had both gotten up and made breakfast before he'd woken up. They decided to not wake him right away and eat first.  
Todd munched slowly on his buttered toast. "I... I still can't fucking believe I pinned Johnny down yesterday..." He announced suddenly.  
But then Johnny suddenly appeared in the kitchen with them, scratching his head as he concurred, "I can't fucking believe it, either. When did you become a ninja, kid?"  
"Recently..." Todd answered after a quick gasp and sigh. "Gaz taught me how."  
"Huh." Johnny glanced over at the incredible female, humbled by her strength. "Uh, well, good job with him. Sorry about trying to attack you, by the way. I guess that was rude of me..."  
Gaz shrugged without care, "S'aright. It wasn't completely you that attacked me, it was partly your demon egging you on. Besides, I was never in any real danger. If I really had to, I could have put you down. But I'm glad I managed to save you after all - I bet you'll clean up real cute."  
From the horrified look Johnny was giving her, nobody had ever dared call him 'cute' before, and it didn't settle well with him. He angrily snapped back at her, "What the fuck, bitch. Are you treating me like a dog?"  
"Yes." She answered, bluntly honest and unashamed. "Todd's always been very generous with how he regards you. As a friend, even somewhat like a 'brother'. Yes, you're very much 'part of the family' according to HIM." Gaz pointedly reached over and gave her sentimental husband a playful shove. "BUT, that NOT what you are to ME."  
Johnny slowly sat down at the table and raised an eyebrow at her, in awe of the girl's nerve. In awe, and a tired, dazed submission of her power. He still couldn't believe the shit that had happened yesterday, in his distant past, and the shit that was happening now.  
Not waiting for him to keep up, Gaz continued, "You like to think yourself an artist, Johnny, and maybe you kinda are. But for the most part, you are a wild beast. You were born to violence and bloodshed and you grew to like it, in your own way. You will never not like it. You like killing people, and there was a time when it didn't matter who. But not anymore. And that's where we come in. If you want to continue to be a part of Todd's family, and I know you do, you need to do your part..."  
"My part?" Johnny echoed, glancing over at Todd, "The hell does that mean?"  
"It means," Gaz went on impatiently, "That me and Todd have a plan going on. The ultimate demon that cursed us all, that birthed us to our fucked up lives and has tried to control us all this time? We're going to take him down and change our curse. But I can't just kill Diablo all at once, it's a lot harder to destroy magic than physical matter, and most of what he is, is magic. I'm going to have to trap him beneath the bottom level of this house. Todd has already agreed to be the Watch Man to the Door to Diablo's trap. And now Johnny, I'm asking you to be his Watch Dog. His Beastie. Basically, I'm asking you to be Todd's Pet."  
This time Todd joined Johnny in his confusion, "Wait, what?"  
Gaz ignored him just for the moment, and focused her stare very seriously upon Johnny. "I told Todd that he wouldn't have to feed blood to the Door to keep Diablo locked up. And he won't. Because you're going to do it for him. You're going to keep Todd's hands and soul clean from the bloodshed, and in return, Todd will protect you too. He will make sure you take care of yourself, and that you only kill victims who truly deserve it. He'll make sure you never make another mistake like you did with Edgar Vargas."  
Todd and Johnny stared at her for a moment or two, before Todd snapped out of it and began to load Johnny's plate with the eggs, fried potatoes and toast they made for breakfast. As he did so he commented doubtfully, "Come on, Gaz. We can't ask Johnny to do something like that. He's finally free and you're asking him to willingly chain himself to that darkness again, forever? There has to be another way..."  
"I'm sorry sweetie, but there isn't." Gaz cut him off, blunt as always. "I'm gonna be straight with you, Todd. My plan really isn't the greatest. I can't free everyone, just me, my brother and Devi, and in a way I'm kind of enslaving someone else, our own daughter, to finish the job for me later in her life. I'm actually not much better than Diablo himself..."  
Todd was about to deny her truths, but Johnny interrupted him first, "You're right, you kinda suck. But... I guess you're trying the best you can in this fucked up situation. And I guess if Todd believes in you, and is willing to do his best for you, then I guess I ought to do my best too. Not for you, but to protect him, and his family, and to free Devi... I'll do it."  
Gaz smirked and held out her hand over the table. Johnny took it and they gave each other one quick shake before pulling back. Todd gave them both a big grin as he watched over their display, "Aww. It's so good to have the family getting along!"  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
At Gaz's insistence, Johnny began to stay with them after that. He only went out at night so he could avoid people as much as possible, but most of the time he was content to hang out around the house. He'd taken to helping Todd and Gaz fix and remodel the rooms, and between the three of them they made excellent progress, until only a handful more levels remained as bleak as they'd been before.  
He didn't mind when Todd had to go to work, or when he wanted to spend time alone with Gaz in his room, but he didn't like it at all when Todd had to leave to go see Pepito. Todd always came back looking depressed, but his younger friend always assured him that Gaz made it all better.  
Truth be told, though, it was getting close to unbearable for Todd. Pepito's quest for contact had become relentless, until finally he backed Todd into a corner one day, and grabbed into the side's of his hips as he asked him, "Todd, be honest... Do you think we'll ever be... More than friends?"  
The human's heart pounded against his chest, mostly in fear. Gaz had warned him Pepito would eventually do this, and had advised him what to do once he did. "Pepito..." Todd whispered back to him, choosing all his words very carefully. "Listen... I... I -think- I might feel the same way for you, that you do for me. But," He added quickly, before Pepito could jump the gun, "I can't lie to you, Pepito. I'm scared. Of Gaz. I'm scared to let myself love you, because of her. I'm afraid that once I let myself have feelings for you, she'll kill you, and I'll be alone..."  
Pepito began to angrily snap back at him, "That would never happen-!"  
Todd suddenly cut him off with a kiss. It was completely forced on all levels, but Todd managed to make it seem natural. He just had to pretend he was kissing Gaz for a moment - Though it was hard to convince himself of that when he could taste the distinct flavor of Pepito's breath - Sweet cinnamon tea and rancid cigarette smoke.  
When he pulled away, Pepito was in a bit of a daze. Todd jumped to take advantage of the situation, and mentioned while the Antichrist was still malleable, "Please, Pepito. I have to be sure. If you were able to capture Gaz, and kill her, then I would know that we could be safe to be together. I wouldn't have to worry about my heart breaking, if Gaz were to kill you. But if you got rid of her, then I would be able to give myself to you completely..."  
Pepito gasped in shock, dazed from the kiss. "Todd... Does that mean... You'll-?!"  
Todd interrupted him with another quick kiss before he pulled back and nodded, "I will. As long as you let me see her die..."  
Pepito grinned like the devil he was, and hugged Todd tight, downright squeezed him in fact, which was terribly uncomfortable, but he put up with it and squeezed him back. After a minute or two Pepito finally released him, and held him at arm's length as he announced, "Right! I know the perfect way to do this. She's got to still be sneaking into your basement every night to bring the wall Devi's offerings. Like I said, she's a sneaky little cockroach, so I've been thinking that we need to set a trap for her, and with your go-ahead I can put it into play. See, I'm going to station Agaliarept at your house tonight, and he'll alert me right away when she gets there. Then, when I get there, I will end her. I know I'd be able to do it any time, but today is All Hallow's Eve. She won't stand a chance against me. I'll finally destroy her for good tonight, and then, you can be one of my NEW Generals of Hell! That sounds good to you, right Todd?"  
Todd simply smiled and nodded to his friend. "Sounds like one HELL of a plan..."  
Literally, it sounded like Hell. Especially considering that Gaz had already planned for this all to happen, and had already staged everyone in their proper places. No matter who ended up succeeding at the end of the day, there was at least one thing Todd was sure of - Tonight was going to be a night that he and Pepito would -never- forget...  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


	14. Chapter 14

The Crossroads of Fate  
It was All Hallow's Eve. Johnny, the homicidal maniac, stood on that familiar old hill, that hill where he'd once stood with Devi, years ago. Currently he was standing there with some weird, almost freakishly tall dude and what was clearly an alien, of the short and green variety. It seemed to be either reptilian or insectoid, and had big red eyes and antennae. It WAS Halloween, but that was clearly a real alien...  
It had to be them. The ones Gaz had sent him for.  
Best to make sure though. "Are you Dib Membrane?"  
Dib's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open, "Wha-Hey! How do you know who I am? Who are YOU?"  
Johnny rolled his eyes and let out an irritated sigh - He was no damn delivery boy, but he reminded himself for the hundreth time since having the misfortune of meeting his old best friend's terrifying new wife: He was doing it for Squee. For Todd. For Devi. And for his own freedom... "The name's Johnny C. Your sister Gaz sent me to come get you and bring you to her."  
Dib was caught between relief at now knowing where to find Gaz, and the terror of having to actually go to her, accompanied by this weird-looking guy. But he wasn't about to wuss out either, especially not in front of Zim, and strange enough as it was, the guy actually seemed legit. If Gaz was going to send anyone to get him, who else would it be but an incredibly weird, scary-looking guy? "Alright, I guess... Hey, it's Halloween tonight, isn't it? Guess that means you don't have to use a disguise at all tonight if you don't want to, Zim." The tall dork said to the shorter green dork.  
Zim scoffed back at him, "Nonsense! I must be prepared for the possibility, however SLIM, that the humans evolved a brain since we left and might suspect me!" With that, the green dork scurried back to his ship, and about two minutes later, emerged from it wearing his stupid human contacts and wig... And also a big, padded bear suit.  
Dib stared at him for a second, then gave him a thumbs up. "You look great, buddy."  
"Shut up, Dib, I know it!" Zim snapped back at him, "Now what about Orby?"  
The orb promptly announced, "Behold my crazy neat cloaking technology!" Then it used a hologram to appear like a purple ball with green spots. "Now I am a perfectly normal Vurp Ball!"  
Dib raised an eyebrow and quirked a smile. "That looks like a great Vurp Ball, Orby. Whatever that is. But I think it might be better to go with orange and black stripes."  
"Oh, a Zurp Ball?" The orb seemed to shrug and then changed its appearance to that of a normal basketball.  
Dib nodded in approval. "Perfect! Just let me hold you under my arm while we're around humans. Alright then. I think we're ready to go-"  
Dib hadn't quite finished that sentence when the scary, skinny man turned and began walking down the hill, apparently not that fond of his task. At first Dib simply followed him in silence, but it began to nag at him - Why did Gaz send this guy? Who was he? He had a strong hunch, with how antisocial the guy was acting and how he immediately gave him the creeps. When he could no longer bear it, he finally hesitantly piped up, "H-Hey, Johnny C, was it? What exactly is your relationship to my sister? Are you, like, her boyfriend...?"  
Johnny immediately turned and gave him a grimace of disgust, "EW. NO!" He snarled back, causing Dib to stop in his tracks and watch him wearily as he went on, "FIRST of all, I detest 'romance' and all that puke and drivel, and would never participate. Secondly, she's with my friend Squeegee, not me! And frankly, I don't get what he sees in her, except that she's crazy strong. And just plain crazy. Or so sane it's crazy. I can't really tell..."  
"Hey, well, that's two of us." Dib replied, trying to use humor to pacify the maniac. He didn't even want to know about this 'Squeegee' guy.  
Dib's humor ploy worked, barely, but it worked. Johnny just rolled his eyes and turned his back on them again, and kept on trudging down the road. "Just shut up and follow me."  
"Wait, hold on." Zim piped up, "Are you SURE we can't just hand Orby off to this guy to take to Gaz, and just get out of here?"  
Johnny turned again and snarled, "I'm NO one's delivery boy, DAMN IT!" He was clearly at the end of his wits. It was one thing to be bossed around by a girl much younger than him, but he wasn't about to be bossed around by a fucking alien in a bear suit!  
Dib glared at Zim for mouthing off, and was about to try and undo the damage, but Orby beeped for their attention first, and luckily for them Johnny was easily distracted by the talking basketball. "You theoretically COULD do that, BUT, Gaz would be most displeased by you not coming to see her yourself. She would very likely come after you."  
Zim groaned audibly, but Dib spoke over him, "Come on Zim, quit being a drama queen about it. I know Gaz is the scariest person in this and most other universes, but she's still my sister, and I'm sure she'll be at least a little thankful that we brought Orby for her. Right Orby?" He looked over to his machine-mom with a nervous smile.  
"It's more probable than not." She vaguely 'confirmed'.  
"See?" Dib went on as if it was a sure bet. "I know she's scary Zim, but listen... There's another side of Gaz..."  
Zim raised a brow at that, and crossed his arms petulantly as Dib continued, "It's hard to explain, but... Once, a few years ago, when I was seventeen and Gaz was six... Uh, I mean, also seventeen." He kept forgetting she wasn't really his 'little' sister after all. "I caught her out in our backyard, smoking a cigarette. I told her I was gonna tell Dad if she didn't stop. Of course, I was scared OF her, but I was more scared FOR her. Cigarettes are literally poison, and I knew she already knew that. I was worried she might be depressed about something, or something..."  
Dib awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, "I knew I couldn't get into her personal business, but I could at least discourage the unnecessary bad habit. So I told her to put out the cigarette and told her not to let me catch her smoking one again. At first she looked at me as if she wanted to hit me..." Years later, Dib still shuddered remembering that look. "But then... She grabbed the cigarette, and sucked it down to the filter in one go. Then she walked up to me, face to face. I knew she was going to blow the smoke at me. But when she finally did... There was no smoke. The air she blew on my face, it was just pure air! There wasn't even a HINT of cigarette on her breath, hell, it was even a little minty!"  
Zim was starting to look confused, and therefore impatient, but Dib continued one last time as he finished up his tale, "She told me 'Chill out, Dib', and then she... She smiled. You know Gaz, she doesn't smile much, and this was the weirdest smile I'd ever seen. It was like, she was actually, genuinely -happy- that I'd told her off about the cigarettes... What I'm basically trying to say, is that I know Gaz is some kind of super dark, crazy powerful demon-master, but there's also a side of her that is capable of the exact opposite of that... I have to know if I'm right. And if I'm wrong, we'll get the hell outta Earth, ASAP."  
Zim sighed and rolled his eyes. He couldn't deny, at least to himself, that in addition to the terror, he also felt more than a bit of curiosity about the Gaz-beast's plans. "Oh fine... But if she gets violent, I'm leaving you behind to deal with her."  
Dib smiled and nodded, but before he could quip back, Johnny interrupted with a deep growl, "ENOUGH of the chit-chat already! What is this, a cheerleader's slumber party?! Either follow me or don't!"  
The maniac began stomping down the hill once again, and wisely, the intergalactic duo followed after him without another word.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Gaz arrived at the bottom level of Johnny's house that night at eleven-forty-seven. The Last Demon General Agaliarept was waiting for her right in the middle of the room, just as she'd known he would be. When he came after her, she pretended to put up a fight against him, but only until he called forth Pepito. Once the Puppet Prince was in sight, she instantly slayed his final demon general right in front of him, by disappearing and then reappearing behind Agaliarept, and stabbing him through the heart with a knife she'd seemingly picked up from one of Johnny's many piles.  
Pepito roared with supreme rage at the sudden slaughter, and his arms became black tendrils that shot out as fast as a bolt of lightning and wrapped around Gaz's arms, pinning her against the furthest back wall. Though it was only because she was letting him, of course. She put up a struggle at first for show, then let the horned twerp assume he had bested her as he began to burn her skin with poison in the sludge, pretending to briefly cry out in agony.  
Todd entered the room just as Pepito's sludgy arms detached, leaving behind sticky, hissing poison-shackles, which quickly hardened around Gaz's wrists and forearms against the wall, her pose almost like a mockery of the crucifix. The Antichrist grinned like the devil he was as his friend came over to him, planting a sweet kiss on his cheek. Pepito quickly turned his face and caught Todd's lips instead, and although Gaz knew his stomach was churning just as much as hers was, she made no mention of it.  
When Pepito finally pulled away, he was grinning again, and he motioned over to Gaz's 'helpless' form. "Take a look at this, amigo. I think she's gotten fatter since you broke up! Looks like you dodged a bullet!"  
"Amazing, Pepito! Congratulations!" Todd goaded his ego in the most heartfelt tone he could manage. And just as Gaz had reminded him to do earlier, he also sneered back at her, "You know what they say about the difference between a slut and a bitch, right Pepito? A slut will fuck anyone, and a bitch will fuck anyone but you. Looks like Gaz is a bit of both."  
Pepito roared again, this time with laughter. " AHA! Good one, amigo! You're right, she's definitely more of a bitch, but it looks like she's a dumb one too. Never heard of birth control, bitch?"  
Todd quickly piped up, "You do know how I feel about hurting children though, Pepito..." It was the one vital bit of his humanity he was allowed to keep around the Antichrist, the part of him that the devil had always known he could never change. All the same, Todd finally had accepted that he could never change who Pepito really was either...  
Pepito sighed and tapped his bottom lip with a claw-tipped finger. "Yes, I know, mi amore..." Suddenly he snapped his fingers and grinned. "And I've got a better idea anyways! Hehe..."  
The Antichrist procured a surgical scalpel from somewhere in his leather long-coat, and advanced across the room towards his witchy foe. "Gaz, I'm afraid I cannot and -will- not show you any mercy after killing my old generals. However, I must admit, I am impressed by your valiant but ultimately futile attempt to seize the eons-old powers of Diablo, the power that will soon be rightfully inherited by ME."  
He stopped just a few steps away from her, itching to slice and stab her with the scalpel, but resisting to draw out and savor the moment longer. "And I must go on to admit, because I do respect you even though I also truly hate you, that you've done me more of a service than not. To have been beaten by such a simple, albeit clever, little witch... Tut, tut. They clearly weren't worth keeping around. Todd will be a fine replacement, as will the little beast in your belly. Don't worry, mamacita. We'll take good care of your crotch dumpling, once I've carved it out of you..."  
Gaz didn't have to pretend to be affronted by Pepito's claim, and she spat down at him, otherwise wordless. The spittle hit his cheek with a burning hiss, and with a deep snarl, he jammed the scalpel into Gaz's thigh. She bit down on her tongue and refused to give him a single sound besides her almost even breathing, her eyes staring right into his.  
"Ooh, you're good~" Pepito purred back at her, staring back and licking his grinning lips. "No, you're REALLY damn good!" He went on, as she still barely grunted when he jiggled the scalpel a bit closer to the bone. "Almost -completely- inhuman..." He went on in a growl, "But not -quite-..." She finally let him see what he wanted, letting out another small cry and causing her disguise to flicker, revealing her true self. With her pale green skin seeming a darker shade in the barely-lit basement, and her natural black hair and lekku hanging down, looking defeated but defiant - She truly looked like a Wicked Witch.  
He grinned and finally took back the blade, and waved it around, carelessly letting the blood drop onto his gloved hands as he chided her. "You had to know you'd never stand a chance, once you got to me and my father. Did you really think that just because you picked off the underlings, you could take on the MASTERS of DARKNESS?"  
Gaz slowly looked up at him with the smallest of smiles. "You know... For a second there? Yeah, I kinda did..." She replied, the simplicity of her mockery stinging even more.  
Pepito grit his sharpened teeth into a forced grin and hissed back at her, "I -know- you're lying, -Gazlene-!" He got her to finally grimace back at him in annoyance for using her full name. "That's why you waited so long to get here tonight! I know you knew that this night was the only one that you could even hope to make an attempt at a coup. But you waited until almost the very last second to come! That doesn't seem like someone who is truly confident in their mission to me, Gazzy~ You know what it sounds like to me?"  
He grabbed her chin, even though she was already staring right at him. "It sounds like a scared little girl who wanted to put off mommy's chores until the very last second! Oh, I know, you felt like you owed her. She gave you life and you gave her death. But I know you knew, all along, this thing your mother asked you to do... It was impossible from the start."  
Gaz gazed back at him, pretended to be saddened by his words, even managing to conjure a couple of false tears to her eyes. "I wanted to believe that she wouldn't have asked me to do it unless she was sure I could... Now I know..." She trailed off, not finishing that sentence.  
Pepito smirked and then grinned at her, "Yes... Tell me..."  
Todd stayed perfectly, absolutely still, hands in his pockets, watching the two. Waiting.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Dib didn't like the looks of the creep leading the way, and he liked it even less when they finally arrived at their destination. It looked like a normal suburban house on the outside, but really that was what made it even more odd. The gothic-looking man just didn't seem like the type who would have a pastel-painted house and a garden full of flowers.  
"Uh... Is this your place...?" Dib asked hesitantly, just to make sure they weren't about to invade someone's home.  
"Kinda." Johnny answered vaguely before opening the door and letting himself in.  
Hesitantly Dib followed after him. He already didn't like the look of things from the start, and when the eerie stranger revealed that they had to descend into a basement, his apprehension doubled. When he -then- revealed yet -another- hidden basement within that basement, Dib had to stop and inquire, "Wait, how many of these things do we have to go down...?"  
"A LOT." Johnny snarled back immediately, getting edgy and impatient. "Your sister is at the very bottom and there's a LOT of stairs and ladders before you get to the bottom, OKAY? And LUCKILY for YOU, my good friend Todd cleaned most of this place up really well, so it's not nearly as bad as it could have been! GO ON, take a good whiff! Smells like pine and lemony freshness, doesn't it?! It USED to smell like, LIKE-FFFILTH! Pure DEATH! ROT and STINK! So why don't you just focus on that, and shut the FUCK up for the rest of the trip down, and I'll KINDLY resist the urge to STAB YOU?" By the end of this tirade the maniac's usual deep timbre of voice was turning into a very uncomposed and unmanly-sounding shriek.  
Dib raised an eyebrow and took a step back from the spit flying from the other man's mouth, "O...Kay..." He replied slowly and very quietly.  
Zim quipped, "Your sister sure does keep interesting company!"  
Johnny twitched an eye at the alien, "That goes for you too, E.T. In fact it goes even more for you, since I'm pretty interested to know what your insides look like."  
"See, it's not just me..." Dib piped up quietly to his boyfriend with a smirk.  
Zim glared at Dib briefly before unleashing his spider legs and jabbing them defensively in the maniac's direction, "I would NOT try it, human scum."  
Johnny regarded the spider legs with interest, respect, and more than a bit of envy. "Touche, green-thing. But let's go already, NOW. Your sister told me to get you guys to the bottom basement at a VERY specific time, and if I don't she'll doom us for all eternity. Seriously dude, I AM one of the scariest things in existence, and your sister STILL fucking scares me, so let's GO..."  
Dib couldn't argue with that, so he didn't, and followed him down, down, down...  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Gaz gazed into Pepito's eyes, the eyes of the devil's puppet. Her soul locked onto his. She saw every single evil thing in him that he was so sure she could never fathom, and regarded it all as immature and pathetic. But, in her eyes and on her face, she feigned the confusion and shock that the demon so craved to see. "I wanted to be the one who could change everything..." She continued to lead him, but vaguely.  
Pepito, however, was just starting to get tired of her game. It was getting late, and he wanted her dead before midnight. So he cut her off curtly, "And now you know just how ridiculous that was! You, a single mortal, a weak little whore-witch, against Diablo, lord of this damned Earth for all time?! You will now DIE for your insolence!"  
His gloating, however, lasted just a moment too long. Gaz did not reveal the smirk on her face, but she felt it inside of her as she sensed her kin had finally stepped over the threshold. It was time.  
She didn't even have to signal Todd in any way. He knew exactly when to act, and he did so without either the slightest bit of hesitation, or a single hint of what he was about to do. He was perfectly still until the second Pepito announced she would die, and began to pull back the scalpel to stab her. Then, Todd finally struck, pulling back his own fist and socking him right upside the face from behind, Pepito never saw it coming, and to Diablo's horror, neither had he, not until the second the blow had hit.  
Todd briefly grinned maniacally at this rare violence, suppressed for so long. He could finally strike back at the thing responsible for the horrors of his youth and the stagnation of his life thusfar, and you better believe he took advantage of it. The blow hit so hard, Todd knew he had broken at least one of his fingers, but he didn't care about the pain at all. Finally getting back at the massive son of a bitch that was ruining the Earth and mankind was too sweet and too rare a pleasure to be marred by a little sting.  
Pepito flew to the ground, and Gaz looked up to see Dib, who had just descended the last stairway and stepped into the bottom level, his no-longer-bespectacled eyes going wide at the sight of it all. She quickly barked at her clueless brother, "DIB! HELP -TODD-! The one who -DOESN'T- have HORNS!" And just after saying that, she disappeared.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
Dib almost couldn't believe how many levels they'd had to descend. He counted them all in silence in his head, and was amazed at how long he had to keep counting. Most of the rooms and hallways they had to go through were clean enough and smelled of new paint and cleaning products, but when he got to the sixtieth level, it started to smell a little and then a lot less fresh, and strange and scary stains started to appear on the walls and floors. Zim started gagging and pulled out a gasmask from his PAK to avoid the stench and germs. Dib pulled his shirt over his nose.  
Finally, when he'd just counted off sixty-five in his head, Johnny led them to a door at the end of a hallway that led to a stairway. Before opening the door, the maniac spoke for the first time since his last warning, and very quietly announced, "This is the last one..."  
As he walked down the stairs, ahead of everyone, Dib realized that the last level was just one huge room. It was barely lit only by a few fireballs floating around the edges, but he could see clearly that just as he walked in, one man had just socked the shit out of another one - And man was that second dude ugly!  
Just beyond them, Dib gasped sharply to realize Gaz was suspended against the wall. He recognized her by her face and her strange, powerful aura alone, because nearly everything else about her he'd ever remembered was different. Her skin was what looked like an olive green in the dim light, and her hair was pure jet black, a shade he could barely remember from their earliest youth, before she started dyeing it. Her leg was bleeding, and good god either she had a massive abdominal tumor, or she was very, very pregnant. But before he could begin to worry about any of that or which possibility was worse, Gaz had snapped at him, "DIB! HELP -TODD-!" Wait, which one was- "The one who -DOESN'T- have HORNS!" Ah.  
In the next instant, Gaz had disappeared into thin air, and Dib only hesitated for half a second before jumping to her command. Todd had immediately followed Pepito to the spot where his body had landed. The Antichrist looked up at him in utter shock of his betrayal, the deepest of all pains in his eyes at his looked up at his former friend and whispered, "Why...?"  
Todd stared coldly back without answering. Gaz had already warned him of this trickery. It wouldn't last. Soon he would get impatient and then he would get angry. Todd had realized long before this, it wasn't just the friend he thought he had in Pepito that had never existed. In a way, Pepito himself never truly had either, and still didn't. This ultimately evil and pathetic creature begging him for the love and mercy that it would then use to damn him and the rest of the world - Todd could still -almost- feel sorry for the little puppet, except for how wickedly it was purposed. For his own sake and that of everyone else, he couldn't allow himself to show clemency to this evil being. So evil, Gaz had finally told him the night before, that it would use a child's stuffed bear to manipulate it with a mocking imitation of protection and safety, and then burn it right in front of that child's eyes... Evil like that -needed- to be destroyed. You couldn't afford to feel sorry for it.  
Pepito wasn't Pepito. Pepito was Diablo, and Diablo was his living nightmare. Diablo was his parent's hatred and neglect. Diablo was the demons and delusions, the disruption of almost all of his dreams. Diablo was Shmee, telling him right to his face how fucked up his life was, pretending to sympathize and then laughing about it behind his back. Diablo was the sick, twisted cartoonist in charge of his life, drawing horrors into his mind. Well now it was time for that fucker to choke on his pen.  
So in fact, he knew that it wasn't actually Pepito that he was about to face, but Diablo. Little ol' Todd Casil was about to face the devil himself to help his girlfriend save the world. This was better than any story he could have come up with, but it was also a whole lot scarier. Even though he tried to remain perfectly stoic in the face of evil, Todd couldn't deny that a shiver went down his spine when 'Pepito' began to snarl at his continued silence.  
"This is the path you're going to choose?! FINE!" The demon spat at him with fury before his body rose off the floor, propelled by Diablo's dark magic. "YOU CAN DIE WITH YOUR WHORE, YOU TRAITOR!"  
Todd almost froze with fear as Pepito's face contorted and turned ashen, and his eyes turned into black empty cavities, then burned with hellfire. But then almost out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning struck the ugly puppet right in the face, sending it sprawling to the floor once again. Todd looked back in shock to see a very tall and strong-looking man, surrounded by lightning, with the weirdest zig-zag shaped hair scythe-thing coming out of his head, which seemed to be where the electricity was coming from. "HEY! Don't you call my SISTER a whore! HYAH-!" The imposing man cried before unleashing another row of lightning bolts at the demon.  
Suddenly, Todd didn't feel worried at all about facing Pepito Diablo, with a 'human' lightning rod on his side, and he pounced on the Antichrist's fallen form once more, beating his fists down on his face and chest without mercy.  
A large black tendril suddenly rose out of the floor and tried to snatch them, but Gaz just as suddenly reappeared in front of it, now with Devi in tow. Gaz then promptly disappeared again, but left Devi, who had two very large and very sharp knives in her hands. She swung her arms out gracefully, slicing the demon tendril with the same grace that she used when swiping brushes across a canvas. The knives apparently were not normal kitchen knives either, or at least not anymore. Gaz must have blessed them, because they hissed like acid when they made contact with the demon tendril and reduced it to a formless blob of slime, which would soon after dissolve into harmless dust when it hit the floor.  
More tendrils popped up to try and take Todd and Dib, but Devi fought them off with swift slices and slashes, soon joined by Johnny, who ripped and tore the tendrils apart with hooks. Neither of them spoke or even looked at each other, completely distracted by the constant reappearing tentacles that kept trying to kill them all.  
While all this was going on, Zim sat on the stairway, watching everything transpire in shocked silence and confusion. That is, until a transparent human-figure suddenly appeared sitting next to him, and inquired, "Sorry, I don't mean to bother you, sir. But I couldn't help but notice that, even though you're in a bear suit for some reason, you're clearly an alien..."  
"Eh?" Zim barely flicked his eyes over at the weird being in annoyance. "So what? Aren't you one of those 'ghost'-things Dib's always chasing around?"  
"Oh. Well, yeah." The specter admitted sheepishly. "The name's Edgar, by the way. I've just never seen an alien before. Anyways, aren't you going to help your friends?"  
"Nah." Zim replied with immediate disinterest, procuring a licky-stick snack from his PAK as he dully watched the humans and demons unleashing carnage upon each other. "Only one of them is actually my friend, and I still like seeing him get beat up sometimes. Anyways, this seems like a human problem, so I'm not getting involved. I'm sure they can handle it. Lets watch, shall we?"  
Back in the possessed room, Gaz had reappeared again, opposite of where Dib and Todd were beating Pepito senseless. But she again disappeared just as a tendril tried to catch her. She repeated this bait and switch move dozens of times in dozens of spots in the room, constantly appearing and disappearing. Finally Diablo became beyond frustrated with her game, and the horribly frightening true visage of the demon himself, with his monstrous skull and his huge, piercing eyes, finally appeared in the middle of the room, roaring, "ENOUGH! Either face me or FLEE, little girl! What is it going to be?!"  
Just as soon as the boom of his demonic voice stopped echoing throughout the room, Gaz appeared 'obediently' in front of him with a smirk on her face. A solitary second passed between them where neither moved, just stared. Gaz didn't shiver even once at the sight of the disgusting demon, his alien features and the noxious miasma of demon aura radiating off of him. Likewise, Diablo regarded her as nothing more than a bug about to be squashed, and was briefly wondering as he watched her, if he ought to ask her for her last words, or just kill her and get it over with. He was just beginning to lean towards the latter option, when Gaz suddenly spoke up for herself. "Earth and spirit, through I, reborn anew. I now claim the right to pass judgment over you."  
Diablo's eyes went wide and a shiver struck him. Time froze, as well as everything else. He realized very abruptly, a second too late, that the fight was over before it even began, but he still stubbornly refused to admit it until the bitter end. Suddenly the world quaked violently into motion once more, knocking the devil to his knees for the first time in his entire existence. A wave of rare panic came over the demon, and he let out a rabid roar, like the sound of a dangerous beast when cornered. Ink-like demonic creatures, some that looked like hound-headed humanoids, some like reptiles or insects or other impossible monsters, began to leak out of the wall, smelling like putrid blood.  
Gaz disappeared and reappeared a few times more, procuring a strange black scythe sometime in between and flinging it at the open space, cutting two dark rips in the fabric of their dimension and letting a few inky-creatures of her own drip out before sealing the rips with alternating swings of her scythe, which was a reflective silver opposite of the coal-colored side. Her demons obediently kept Diablo's at bay by consuming and absorbing them, all the while her voice echoed throughout the room, "You've damned innocents who did nothing wrong or right, just to appeal to your twisted sense of delight. Now, through you, I was born - To mend all that which you have torn."  
Dib glanced back at Gaz with wide eyes - Todd really didn't need all that much help from him, in fact, Dib felt safer himself backing off and letting the kid go berserk. He obviously had issues with the horned-dude, whose face was beginning to resemble a crushed purple grape, and was yelling at him as he pummeled his body, "RR, THIS IS FOR MY MOM! AND MY DAD! AND FOR -ME-!" But that didn't really hold Dib's interest, he was focused on his sister and her battle instead.  
Dib had always known she was powerful... But damn. This was something else. His sister was actually fighting the Devil, the darkest demon on planet Earth. Well, until Gaz showed up apparently. She had begun disappearing and reappearing again, faster than ever and dangerously close to the demon, who was constantly trying to snatch her out of mid-air, and constantly failing. Each time she reappeared mockingly close to Diablo, she recited part of her spell-poem to him, "Your time has passed, and it was far too long. No soul will miss you when you're gone. I am here to forever seal you away. For your offensive existence you shall finally pay. Then my hands shall be washed clean, and your victims will finally peacefully dream..."  
"NEVER!" Diablo shrieked so loud that nearly everyone with ears had to briefly cover them, except for Gaz, who stood stoic in the wake of his wrath. She stood right in front of the demon now, and he of course lunged for her, but he was propelled away from her body like an anti-magnet. His claws desperately tried to inch closer to her skin in mid-air, but he couldn't come any closer than a foot of her.  
She smirked up at him as he magically transformed his head into a crocodile-like snout and jaw, trying to bite her head off and unable to do anything but comically gnaw at the space around it, and went on calmly while he did so, "I fear nothing about you, for my purpose is greater. I don't exist simply to be your slayer. Beyond the stars is where my destiny lies in wait, beneath the stars I leave the greatest gift in my wake..."  
She rubbed her hands around her stomach, and then placed her palms upwards. Diablo was suddenly being pushed back from Gaz's form, and then once he was a few feet away from her, she stretched out her arms and hands and his freakishly tall and alien-like form began to float up, his limbs mostly still but occasionally jerking. The demon tried to resist the magic that was suspending his body and repelling his dark, violent magic, which raged inside of him like lightning crashing down into an endless ocean, but he just couldn't bring it forth to blast the unearthly wench to kingdom come!  
Using her immense magic, she then continued to keep him at bay as she also opened the final basement door in the middle of the floor. First her inky creatures dragged the rest of Diablo's demons down into the pit, which reeked of the uncountable number of bodies below. Then Gaz floated the struggling demon lord to the hole in the ground, and began to lower him into it.  
When his legs had been submerged but his upper body was still above the hole, he thrashed out desperately, clawing at the floor, trying to get out. Gaz watched him calmly, poking him in his big, weird head with the butt-end of her scythe, pushing him back into the hole. She continued in a voice that was still calm but also stern and tense, "No longer will your darkness spread like a plague. No longer will this world be ruled by your hate. No longer shall the blameless be tortured by your wrath... No longer..."  
Diablo suddenly made a mad magical leap at her, and she hesitated for just a second, gritting her teeth to push him back one final time before pressing forward, "No longer shall innocent lives be taken... I'LL GIVE THEM BACK-!" She cried out, as if heaving off a weight from her shoulders that would have crushed anyone else, then raised her scythe above Diablo's head, and brought it down upon his head, splitting it right down the middle. A hellish red coal-like glow emerged from the wound as the demon again shrieked loud enough to almost reach the surface. Almost, but not quite.  
With that devastating blow, Diablo lost his grip and fell into the pit, which was suddenly much deeper than it had been before. It was, in fact, now bottomless. The floorboards underneath their feet briefly lit up in a gold light with strange symbols and runes, which circled around the hole to the pit. Her breath barely uneven, Gaz made a motion towards them but did not take her eyes away from the abyss. "Todd. Bring me the Puppet."  
At the sound of her voice making this demand of him, Todd finally and immediately stopped punching Pepito's badly bruised body, and got off of him. He didn't even bother trying to heft the demon to his feet, instead he simply grabbed his wrist and dragged the limp body behind him. Pepito weakly tried to beg him, but there wasn't much he could manage to say through a mouth that was entirely broken. Todd wasn't listening anyways. Any outsider would think that Todd was truly the monster in this moment, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that. This had to be done, and if he had to be the one to do it, if he was the only one who could, then so be it.  
When he was in range, Gaz mumbled, "Throw him in..."  
"NO, TODD, NO-!" Pepito began to scream just before Todd literally threw him by the wrist, jerking it so hard he broke it, into the hole.  
But amazingly, Pepito somehow still managed to grab the edge of the floor with his one good arm and caught himself before he dropped into the nothingness, and Todd soon saw why when he began to pull his head up. His face was no longer even vaguely human, but a frighteningly hellish fusion of some kind of reptilian goat and a praying mantis. Black sludge was leaking from every orifice, yet he spoke almost clearly, albeit demonically, through the sludgy vomit leaking from his mouth and down his throat. "IT'S NOT OVER YET BITCH! IF I'M GOING DOWN, THE TRAITOR IS GOING DOWN WITH ME!"  
'Pepito'-Diablo suddenly flung his broken arm out from the abyss, which turned into a coal-colored spike that he intended to shove right through Todd's heart, then drag him down into the pit. But Gaz reappeared right in front of Todd in the next split second, taking the spike through her shoulder instead. Dangerously close to her heart, but not quite there. While Todd let out a 'squee' of shock and horror at her state, she simply grabbed the spike calmly and began to slowly drag it out, and tsked at Diablo's sad, last little cling to power. It was all over now, this was just his last 'fuck you'. She told him as much, "It's over, Diablo..."  
"NO!" He insisted, looking to the world's new ruler like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. "YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME ON THIS NIGHT, WHEN MY POWER IS-!"  
"Yeah, yeah." Gaz cut him off with a grunt as she pulled the spike out, covering the wound with her other hand. It hissed on contact, healing the rot that Diablo had tried to leave behind. "I didn't expect you to remember, or care, but whatever. You kidnapped my mom on Halloween night, twenty-five years ago. A year and a day after that, I was born."  
She smirked one last time at him as she finished healing her wound, and reached into her pocket. She pulled out her cell phone, and showed him the time. 12:01. Her smirk became a grin as she held him up by the spike he'd tried to kill her with above the hole. "Happy birthday to me, motherfucker." She announced, right before dropping him.  
Again, Pepito did still try to catch onto the ledge, but this time Gaz stomped down on his hand harshly right away, and then reached over and slammed the door to the pit shut, causing him to finally lose his grip. 'Pepito'-Diablo's distant scream could only be heard for a few seconds, but then an enormous demonic howl vibrated throughout the entire house. Dib covered his ears at the sound, but Gaz's voice rose above it as she put her hands down on the door to keep it steady, "TODD, JOHNNY!" She barked, and the two men immediately dropped to their knees and put their hands on the door too, as it began to shake. As if something was still trying to get out, and was more desperate than ever.  
Gaz put the padlock on the door's bolt, snapped it shut, and then chanted one last time as she held the metal piece, making it and the door glow with runes. "I swear on my life, this will be true. This is the last innocent blood that shall be given to you..."  
It was hard to tell what she meant at first, until she began to get up from the floor. Then, to Dib and Todd's horror, and Johnny's slight interest, a trickle of blood ran down from her inner thighs and down her legs, dripping down over her boots and onto the floor. She grit her teeth and ignored it though, and slowly walked over to Devi, barely wincing under the excruciating pain she was currently under. "Hey Devi..."  
"Gaz...?" Devi replied weakly, looking around her in confusion and fear, and dropping the knives she was holding. "What is this place, why are we here...? Oh GOD, why is HE here-?!" She suddenly cried out as she finally noticed Johnny behind her, who shrunk away and didn't try to speak to her.  
Instead, Gaz insisted and grabbed onto Devi's shoulder, steadying and calming her. "DEVI. Don't worry. It's all over now. I know this will be hard for you to believe, but you're finally free from this nightmare you've been under for so long... Your life is finally truly your own. Todd and Johnny helped me do this for you, but none of us expect you to thank us in any way. The best way you could thank us, is to forget all about us and go live your life now. I set you up with a place far from all this crazy shit, and I'm gonna send you there now, okay Devi?"  
Devi seemed unsure about how to respond at first. There was so much going on in her head, it would take a lifetime to try and express it on canvas. So instead she simply nodded, two tears slowly running down her face. "Thank you..." She whispered.  
"No, thank you, Devi." Gaz insisted, sadly and sincerely. "Goodbye."  
She placed her hands out in front of Devi, and in the next instant, she was gone.  
But the second she disappeared, Gaz let out a short, involuntary cry and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach in true agony this time.  
"Gaz?!" Todd worriedly called to her from his spot by the trap door.  
His wife held up a hand, motioning for him to stay where he was, and slowly began to rise to her feet by herself once more. "I need you and Johnny to stay here for at least an hour, Todd... Until the spell stabilizes..." He opened his mouth to speak again, but she cut him off. "Don't worry... I'm not going anywhere yet. I promise."  
She then began to take several unsteady steps towards her brother. But when she got in front of him, she suddenly lost her balance due to the no-longer-bearable pain, and fell against his chest. His eyes went wide as he caught her just in time before she slipped over, and she clung to his shoulders to keep herself upright. "Dib..." She whispered just barely loud enough for him to hear. "I need... Your help..."  
He gawked at her in supreme confusion at first. SHE needed HIS help? She'd never asked for his help before even once in her life, and after everything she'd just managed to do, he couldn't imagine why she ever would. He barely managed to sputter back at her, "W-What? Why...?"  
She growled up at him and clenched the fabric of his shirt in her fist. It was so hard to explain anything to idiots the first time. "I used too much of my power sealing Diablo and sending Devi away. Now I don't have enough to reappear on the surface. Dib, I -need- you to help me get to the top, and then take me to Dad..."  
He tensed up immediately at her request, his stomach turning sour. "Wait, Gaz, I don't think that's the best idea. Dad isn't really the great man he wants everyone to believe he is-"  
"Oh my god, Dib, shut the fuck up!" She cut him off with a deep groan. "Can you fucking SEE without your glasses now or not?! I'm green, and I'm pregnant! What do you expect me to do like this, just walk into the hospital and ask if they specialize in alien births? Dad and I already agreed that he would deliver my babies months ago. And if you think I don't know more about Dad than you THINK you know about him, you're WRONG."  
"So, what?" Dib shot back, frustrated with her, "You know what he did to me and you're fine with him being anywhere NEAR your children-?!"  
"SHUT UP!" She screamed back, but not just with rage. Everyone in the room could hear her unmistakable pain and just the slightest bit of fear. "He won't hurt them, he knows I'd kill him if he did! Except for the very first year of our life, I've always had Dad under my control. I just doomed the creature that was in charge of all our lives, so if you think I can't keep Dad from doing anything I don't really want him to, you might just be too dumb for words, Dib! Now, PLEASE..." She finally allowed him that word as the pain became too much to bear, and another strong contraction involuntarily sent her to her knees, clutching her stomach.  
Dib finally jumped to obey her when he heard that rare word, feeling like a real dumb jerk as she succumbed to the incredible pain she was in to fill his slow self in. He bent down and collected her under the knees in one arm, not caring about the blood that got on his jacket. Hell, it had plenty of other weird stuff on it already. The other arm he cradled around her back, and then hefted her up. She wasn't light, but neither was Dib, and it was easy enough for him to pick her weight up. He tried not to think about the fact that he'd have to ascend sixty-six sets of stairs and a handful of ladders on top of that, and instead focused on the weird way Gaz had just settled against his chest and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Dib couldn't really explain it in words, but he could feel the immense trust of their bond as brother and sister, as if it was a physical thing between them.  
Gaz called back just once to Todd as Dib carried her to the stairs, "You'll know when you can come back up, Todd. It won't be long. Just do what I told you to..."  
Dib barked at Zim as he passed him on the stairs, "Come on Zim, lets go!"  
Zim petulantly took his time in trudging up the stairs after Dib, until Gaz glared over her brother's shoulder back at him, twitching an eye. His steps quickened pretty fast after that.  
Keeping at a safe sprint, Dib made his way up stairs and down corridors with Gaz's weight in his arms for at least ten or twelve levels before finally breaking a sweat. He did so at last only when he came across a ladder, groaning as he remembered that there was at least four or five more. "Gaz, I'm not sure how I'm gonna get you up these things safely..."  
But Gaz was focused entirely on more important matters, holding her stomach and clenching her teeth. Her eyes screwed shut, she seethed back at him, "Figure it out..."  
Starting to panic a little, Dib turned to Orby and asked, desperate, "Orby, you can, like, float things, right?"  
The orb glowed a thoughtful pale blue as it answered, "Smaller items, yes. But it would be impossible for me to sustain Gaz's weight anywhere near long enough to beam her to the top. I have a better idea anyways. It won't be easy, but it's got the best chance of success of all the plans I've compared and simulated. Dib, you'll need to climb the ladder. Zim, you'll have to both hang on to Dib as he climbs the ladder, then create a nest with your PAK-legs underneath Gaz, keeping her body caged until you get to the top."  
Dib gave his boyfriend a pleading glance, "Zim, do you think you could do it?"  
Orby didn't let Zim reply first, and butted in to answer Dib for him instead, "Zim may be much more petite than you Dib, but he's still a genetically enhanced Neo-Irken soldier. His PAK-legs are certainly made of strong enough stuff to sustain Gaz's weight without breaking, and he -should- be more than capable of lifting as much as you can too, at least for a short period of time..."  
With his capabilities subtly called out, Zim growled back at the Orb, which had turned a non-assuming lavender color. "Shut your noise-maker, Dib's Maternal Unit! Of course I can carry Dib's hideous sister, even if she has developed a gigantic tumor in her belly!"  
"Zim-" Dib began to correct him, but Gaz quickly reached up and flicked his ear.  
She rolled her eyes up at him as she mumbled, "Don't tell him yet, stupid. He'll just freak out. Get me outta here first..."  
Laying Gaz on the floor, Dib climbed the first few rungs on the ladder, then paused as Zim wrapped his arms around Dib's shoulders, and his legs around his stomach, clinging tightly. After that Zim reached down with his metallic spider legs, carefully wrapping them around Gaz's body and making sure not to poke or scratch her with the pointy ends.  
Zim grunted a little as Dib began to ascend as quickly as he could, but he refused to let his grip budge a single bit. After a little over a minute, Dib managed to cross the final ladder rung, then gripped the sides of the doorway to pull them in.  
They both panted for air for a few seconds, then Zim handed his cargo over to Dib once more. Gaz groaned deeply as Dib picked her up, and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, "HURRY..."  
Dib nodded without another word, and began to run. The herculean task she needed of him could only be completed so fast, but he pushed himself as far as he could, knowing the situation was direly urgent. With Zim's help, he managed to ascend the rest of the ladders in their way, then continued up every stairway on his own without stopping. Zim huffed along, too proud to ask for a break.  
When they finally emerged at the top level, sweat was rolling down Dib's face and his shirt was soaked in both his sweat and Gaz's blood. Zim pulled out a remote control from his PAK as they crossed out into the open air, and Dib gratefully gasped in the coolness and let it breeze over his face while they waited for the Dual Ship to respond to Zim's summoning.  
Just as the ship began to appear on the dark night horizon, Gaz suddenly let out an involuntary cry, a desperate and painful cry. Feeling helpless, Dib carried her onto the ship as soon as it landed, laying her carefully on the floor as Zim got into the controls and set their coordinates for Membrane's Laboratory.  
Gaz head was rocking back and forth as she whimpered, and her skin had become a much paler and more sickly shade of green. Not knowing what else to do for her at the moment, Dib reached down and wiped the sweat away from her brow. Hesitantly, he then reached down and laid his hand over hers. She gripped his hand as soon as she felt it, shaking as she mumbled back to him, almost deliriously, "Get me to Dad, Dib... J-Just get me to Dad..."  
"I will, I will..." He whispered back, trying his best to keep her calm. But he was also pretty unnerved himself by how much pain his normally composed sister was currently in. To try and distract her from it, he asked her, "Do you know what you're having? A girl, or a boy?"  
"Girl... Boy..." She whispered back in what seemed like an amused tone, and her eyes fluttered shut. Dib didn't think much of the vague answer right away, too worried to care.  
Zim finally announced a few minutes later, "We're here. I parked in the back."  
Dib nodded gratefully to him, then picked Gaz back up and headed outside with her. When they got to the back door, Gaz seemed to have regained consciousness, and she reached out for the pass-code panel. She typed in a number and pressed enter, but the door didn't open right away. After a few antsy moments Dib was about to ask her if she'd typed it right, but then suddenly the door opened at last, and Professor Membrane himself was the one on the other side, panting hard as if he had dropped everything and ran to answer when summoned.  
"Bring her in, quick." Membrane finally panted to Dib, otherwise not recognizing him or his alien companion at all. He then turned heel and ran down the hall to an elevator. Dib and Zim both followed after him and got into the elevator, where they then descended in one of the single most awkward silences ever known to mankind. Well, silent except for some soft, Halloween-themed elevator music (Membrane mentally noted to himself that he needed to switch that out for the Christmas music tomorrow) and the occasional drip-drop of Gaz's blood onto the floor.  
Finally they reached the very bottom level, nine levels below. This floor would have no one else on it, it was the Professor's private lab away from home. The door at the end of the hall opened to reveal a hospital-like setting, and there the Professor reached out to take his daughter.  
Dib glared intensely as he handed her over, but the Professor didn't acknowledge that either. He promptly shut the door behind him as soon as he had Gaz in his own arms, leaving his son and the alien to wait on a bench outside.  
Almost immediately after the two of them sat down, they jumped as Gaz began to scream. At first it was more or less just the normal kind of screaming one would expect during a birth, but the sound quickly turned into something quite a bit more worrisome. It was like the squealing of a pig being slaughtered and the roar of rabid Irken dragon, all wrapped up in a demonic howl. It seemed to go on forever.  
Shaking slightly, Zim hesitantly piped up after a few moments, holding onto Dib's arm in fear, "Well, hopefully your sister learns not to wait before getting a tumor removed from now on..."  
Dib rolled his eyes and huffed back, "Zim, you idiot - She's pregnant!"  
The alien looked up at Dib with the single most horrified expression the human had ever seen on him, and sputtered back, "WHAT?! The Gaz-beast, sh-she's EXPELLING YOUNG...?!"  
"YES, ZIM, NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Gaz screeched back at him from the other room, just before letting out another blood-curdling dragon-scream.  
They both sat in a very uncomfortable 'silence' after that, for what seemed like hours, but was really only half of one. Then the screaming suddenly stopped, and they watched the door closely. A couple of minutes later, Professor Membrane emerged from the room, wiping his face and hands with a towel. Other than that, however, he was almost completely covered in blood, and he didn't seem the least bit disturbed by it.  
"Ah, that went well!" He proudly proclaimed, then finally glanced over in Dib's direction. "Hmm, you're still here? Are you waiting for a tip?"  
Dib's eyes twitched as he looked back at his father, starting to seethe as he wondered if he had really, seriously forgotten him. But then the Professor began to laugh, and piped up again, "I'm just kidding, son, I know it's you. So what have you been up to the last six years? Still insane as ever?"  
Dib stared at his father for a second or two, then he got up to his feet, wordlessly, and in the next second, his fist swung out, connecting with the side of the Professor's face with a painful-sounding 'thwack!'. The older man went down to the floor, and Dib breathed unevenly as he watched, resisting the sorely tempting urge to do it again.  
Instead he snarled back at his father, spit flying from his mouth, "You knew, this entire fucking time, you KNEW, and you have the NERVE to ask me if I'm insane? YOU DID THIS TO ME, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS! You are, without a single doubt, the WORST fucking father EVER! I don't want you to talk to me ever again, and as soon as I'm done with what I came here to do, I'm leaving this place for good and you'll NEVER see my face AGAIN!"  
Wanting to get away but not sure where to go, Dib first peeked into Gaz's room, to make sure Membrane hadn't somehow managed to secretly murder her, what with all that blood. But she was alive after all, and resting comfortably on the bed, covered with fresh white sheets and with two babies laying in little plastic makeshift-cribs right next to her. Feeling awkward, Dib was about to leave for now and let her rest, until she suddenly called out to him, "Dib. Come in and shut the door behind you. We need to talk."  
He looked back at her in confusion and apprehension, "Uh, are you sure? You just gave birth. You should probably rest now..."  
"You should probably stop pretending I'm a normal human." She countered with a growl. "Now shut the stupid door and get over here."  
He obeyed her and walked inside, closing the door and leaving Membrane on the floor behind him, then sitting down in the guest seat nearby her. He expected her to speak first, so he sat in silence as he waited for her to do so. A moment passed by and she still hadn't though, so finally Dib piped up himself, "So, um... I guess I'm not a Capricorn after all...?"  
"Nope. Scorpio." Gaz replied calmly.  
"That makes a bit more sense..." He agreed, scratching his ear awkwardly.  
"Also I was born first, and I hatched first." She added with a small smirk, "So technically YOU are MY 'little bro'."  
Dib couldn't help but crack a grin at that, "Yeah, that makes a bit more sense too, 'Big Sis'..."  
A short silence again passed between them. Dib let her collect her thoughts while he gazed at her, and the babies. It was so weird, seeing someone you've seen a thousand times before looking completely different than you remembered. Now that there was some better light to see her with, he could see that her olive colored skin was actually a slightly paler shade, like jade. But her eyes were still the same amber-brown color that he remembered...  
"Aba gabba baba!" One of the children, a very pale green little one, suddenly cooed. Gaz smiled and reached over to the crib, waving her hand at the light pea-colored baby, who reached up for her fingers with a smile.  
"This one certainly loves to gab, for a newborn." She mentioned quietly. "Human newborns are normally much more quiet and less mobile than you, my clever little caterpillar. See? Your beautiful sister is sleeping peacefully, so hush now, or you'll wake her..."  
Dib got up again, to take a better look over at the other child. Unlike her sibling, she had apparently inherited mostly human DNA - Her skin was peach-colored, and she had no lekku, only two perfectly cute little ears, which seemed to stick out a lot like Dib's did.  
But the green baby disobediently continued to babble back, louder than ever, "Gab! Gabi gabba gab!"  
"Is that what I should call you, Gab?" Gaz replied, as if she could understand the baby-banter perfectly. "Or are you a Gabi?"  
Reaching into the bin, she pulled back the sheets and briefly inspected the newborn's genitals before covering it back up again. "Well, I suppose you could be either..."  
Dib suddenly felt rather awkward as a thought occurred to him, which he hesitantly passed on to her, "Um, no offense Gaz, but shouldn't you be sharing this moment with with their father...?"  
"No duh, asshole." She snapped back at him, clearly very annoyed with him in that moment. "I would if I could. He's still stabilizing my spell to keep the DEVIL locked up for all eternity, remember? He'll be here in another half an hour, but we haven't seen each other for SIX YEARS. So park it, we need to talk."  
With a huff, Dib obeyed her again and took his seat. "Well, I was kinda expecting you to say something first!"  
"I was expecting you to have questions." She countered fairly, "But whatever, I'll start. First of all, I don't think you should be so harsh on Dad."  
Dib's mouth fell open at that and he stared at her, "What-Oh, come on! Are you kidding me? Gaz, how can you take his side like that, knowing what he did to our mother?!"  
She glared back at him, "I'm NOT 'taking his side'! I just know a lot more about him and the entire situation than you do, and I'm thinking about it more logically! The fact is, you're blaming Dad for something that isn't entirely his fault."  
"How can you say that-?" He tried to interrupt.  
"SHUT UP AND LISTEN!" She screeched back at him, and he quickly snapped his mouth shut and did so. "YES, Dad did a LOT of really shitty, selfish things to you! I did too, and I'm going to say sorry for both of us because I know he never will! But you NEED to understand a few things about him AND yourself, Dib. You only share half of your DNA with him. You can't hold him by the same standards you hold yourself to. Normal HUMAN children, Dib? They don't react to seeing aliens and bigfeet and monsters in the dead of night like, 'Wow! Hold still while I get a picture!' They fucking get SCARED, Dib! They don't chase after these nightmares, they get terrified! They scream, they run, or they just freeze up and piss themselves and pray to their impotent GOD that they won't die horribly! That's what Dad had to go through when he was just a little boy!"  
Glaring at him, she went on, "Be honest Dib, what if you had to experience that as a child, -without- the Neo-Irken DNA that enhanced you both physically and mentally - What if you were standing on the brink of adulthood, yet still very much a child, locked up in an insane asylum, your mind wasting away and your demons ready to consume you, and a horrifically powerful monster came to you and told you that he could make them all go away, forever? Not only that, not only would your mind finally be free from this horrible CURSE, but he could grant you intelligence beyond what any other human in history has ever known? Be HONEST, Dib - If you had been in a situation like that, like Dad was, you probably wouldn't have been such a saint in the face of temptation, either!"  
He stared at her wordlessly for several seconds after that, unsure how to respond at first. So Gaz continued without his input, "It's still not an excuse for what he did. He could have chosen to refuse to harm another child like he was harmed, and meet his fate head on, like my husband Todd was willing to do. But that kind of true bravery isn't as common as humans wish it was, especially when we really have to face the pressure head-on ourselves. Dad was just a scared little kid, Dib. What he did was wrong, but he didn't really have a fair choice. He was pretty much just as forced into the situation as our Mother was. He never wanted children anymore than she did, he just wanted to be normal and go to college and do good things for his world, invent things that would better mankind, and he did! He did all that, AND raised two kids that he never even wanted, the best he could! And finally, this should be obvious, but have you forgotten that, as fucked up as this entire situation was for everyone involved, we both owe our LIVES to it?"  
Well, that WAS kind of hard to dispute. It was also rather a lot to process. So, everything Dib thought he knew was true, was wrong... Again. How many times had that happened so far? He'd lost count.  
Letting out a frustrated sigh, he asked her with fatigue in his eyes, "So what am I supposed to do? Just forget about everything he's ever done to me?"  
"Yes." Gaz answered him immediately and with utterly serious conviction.  
"Why?" He demanded to know.  
"...Because you're better than him."  
Dib's eyes went wide as he heard her say that, unable to believe it. Between that and her saying sorry to him, Dib was starting to wonder if this was actually his sister after all.  
Gaz stared back at his perplexed expression silently for a moment, but then she broke out into a strange smile. She snorted, trying to hold back her laughter, until a short cackle finally forced it's way out of her mouth. Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, roughly pulling him down towards her. Dib was almost convinced she was about to break his neck or something, but instead she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, hugging him tight.  
"Dib, you idiot!" She exclaimed, but her voice wasn't the least bit angry. In fact, she was so overwhelmingly happy, she was actually -crying-. Dib had never seen her cry before, not even when she was a little girl, so he was rightfully more than just a tad terrified. At the same time though, it was a surprisingly pleasant sensation, and he didn't feel the need to try and pull away. She went on, pressing her dampened cheek to his, "Do you have ANY idea how amazed I am that you're not DEAD?"  
"Uh..." Was all Dib could manage to think to say at the moment.  
She squeezed him tighter as she continued, "Almost as amazed as I am by the fact that we're BOTH not dead. I always wanted to believe I could do what mom asked me to... But honestly? I was never really, totally sure I could. Not until I saw you tonight. Knowing that you survived everything you did to get back here... I knew I could do anything after that..."  
Finally she let go of him, and let herself fall back against the bed, staring up at the ceiling with wonder in her wide, bright eyes. "We really can do -anything-..."  
Dib was still very much at a loss as to what to say or do in this impossibly weird situation, but luckily for him someone suddenly began to knock on the door, effectively excusing him from the awkwardness as the young man from that weird house stepped inside. He immediately made his way to the plastic bins where the twins were sleeping, staring down at his children in amazement, tears welling in his eyes.  
Dib awkwardly got up from his seat so that Todd could take over, and began to shuffle his way out. But Todd took notice and quickly reached for Dib's shoulder, "Hey, wait." He rubbed his eyes with his sleeve and then smiled brightly. "You're Dib, right? Hehe, except for the coke-bottle glasses, you look just like Gaz always said! If you wouldn't mind, I'd really like to share a coffee or something with you sometime soon. Gaz has told me a lot about you."  
The space-traveler stared back at the strangely normal-looking young man in complete bafflement. Of all the weirdness he'd seen in various dimensions and planets, this kid had to be the single most confusing being he'd ever encountered in his life. What was it that Gaz, the most powerful being in existence, liked so much about this average-looking human boy? Dib supposed he'd have to have a coffee with him some time and find out. "Uh, yeah, sure..." He finally replied in a distracted tone, glancing over at Gaz semi-suspiciously, "You... You actually, tell people about me...?  
She rolled her eyes away from him as a small blush dusted her cheeks. "Duh, stupid. You're my brother and I love you. Now get the fuck out so I can kiss my husband..." She quickly ordered, to cover up the last words she'd just admitted.  
Dib's eyes went wider than they'd ever been before as he heard those words, and he stared outright for more than a few seconds, until Gaz glared and wordlessly shooed him with her hand. "Oh! R-Right, okay..." He mumbled back, heading for the door. But just as he was about to exit the room, he stopped and turned one last time to add, "Um, I - I love you too, sis!" Before quickly shutting the door behind him.  
Todd broke out into a grin as soon as he was gone. "Aww. How cute. He's just as dorky as you said."  
"Oh no, he's WAY dorkier." Gaz replied with a grin of her own. "By the way, I hope you don't mind, but the green one has already decided on 'Gab' for a name. Because he gabs." She explained shortly, just as the baby began to babble in agreement behind them.  
"That's okay." Todd kissed her forehead. "I like Gab. So what about the other one?"  
Gaz pretended to hum in thought, "Well, I did have an idea for a name... I was thinking that I'd kind of like to name her after two of my favorite people. So, what do you think of 'Debi'?"  
"I like it!" He immediately praised. "How do you like 'Jenny' as a middle name?"  
"I think it's perfect. Just like her."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
As Gaz had promised her husband, she didn't leave right away. Though she was far from a regular human, she still had to take it easy after giving birth and sealing away an ancient demon, and was in no shape to be taking off anywhere. Not to mention, Zim and Dib's Dual Ship was much very in the same boat, dented and scratched from the top to bottom after all their adventures, it definitely needed some work before returning to the vacuum of space.  
Gaz didn't trouble herself in the least for sleeping in well past noon the next day, content to let her husband tend to the babies while she did so, and only bothering to wake up when the luscious aroma of greasy, cheesy pizza filled her nostrils. Despite knowing how gross and unhealthy it was compared to most of the nutrients he'd been living off of in space, Dib had been sorely craving a taste of his old staple. Besides, it was his birthday, apparently, so he was allowed to treat himself to his favorite poison, and as he'd expected, Gaz selfishly scarfed down most of the pizza to herself. Of course, nobody was going to correct a hormonal, pain-ridden Gaz about a damn thing.  
The next day Dib went out with Todd for that coffee he had promised, and both men were quite surprised by their perception of the other. Todd was shocked to find that Dib was even dorkier and weirder than Gaz could have ever impressed even if she tried - But then again, to someone as weird as Gaz, even Dib probably seemed like your average geek. Dib, on the other hand, was shocked to find how relatively -normal- his sister's husband was. He was truly average in every way, except for his childhood experiences, but to Dib that was literally all just a walk in the park. His looks were average, his intelligence was average, even his tastes were average - When Dib offered, the kid refused to try one of the alien berries that Dib brought in for Gaz, who used them and the alien aloe in some sort of spell to heal her body and restore her magic.  
But then again, to Gaz, that extraordinarily normal, Plain-Wayne, would-eat-spaghetti-forever-if-he-could-husband of hers, was actually one of the most rare and beautiful beings in the entire cosmos...  
The family went on to spend that Thanksgiving and Christmas together - Truly the single most awkward Thanksgiving and Christmas ever spent. At least Johnny had opted out of it, choosing instead to spend some personal time in the woods and collect his things from his cabin before moving back in with Todd, but between Professor Membrane's flying head-on-a-screen, Zim criticising everything on the table, Dib subsequently trying to steal his portions, and Zim trying to stab him with his spider legs for it, even though he didn't even want the food to begin with, well, it was a memorable holiday season, to say the least.  
Despite Zim's brief initial uproar about it, once Gaz was healed she confiscated the Dual Ship and began making repairs and personal upgrades to it. By and large, human technology was still far behind Irken technology, but Membrane Laboratories had more than one secret hiding in the basement, and besides that, Gaz already had a decent knowledge of Irken technology herself. And of course, with Orby on her side, there was nothing she couldn't do. Still, she definitely took her sweet time doing it, in no particular hurry to leave the world she had been born to right away.  
But after about a month or two, Zim eventually got sick enough of the smells and sights and noises on Earth to test Gaz's wrath, and finally one day he snapped at Dib, "FILTHY human! WHEN are we going to leave this cursed planet?!"  
"Hey, it's not cursed anymore, remember?" Answered Dib, who was sitting on the couch with a cheesy-toes chip hanging out of his mouth. "Gaz fixed that. And she said she's fixing the ship, so be grateful."  
"Well she hasn't fixed the STINK! You're starting to smell like a disgusting Earth-boy again! I refuse to let you touch me again until you've got this horrible Earth-smell off of you!"  
With sex as the ultimatum, Dib sighed, knowing he'd eventually have to go along with what his alien punk wanted. He'd been having fun spending time with a kinda loving family for once, but he also had to agree that Earth just wasn't what it was cracked up to be after everything else he'd seen, and he longed to return to the vastness of space once more.  
So finally, once Christmas and the New Year had passed, he went to his sister to tell her the news, "Hey, Gaz... It's been really good to see you again, but we need to hit the interplanetary road again now. I really wish we could see each other again but-"  
Gaz cut him off there, rocking baby Debi in her arms and wearing a pink apron, but still managing to look more than menacing, "That's good. Because I'm going with you."  
"W-What?!" Dib replied with wide-eyes, not sure if he'd really heard right, "WAIT, what-? I thought we just had to bring Orby-?!"  
"Over Zim's disintegrated CORPSE, you are! Get your own ship, Gaz-pig! Give back the ship and the remote and all other pieces, NOW-!" His alien boyfriend added, but quickly stepped back when Gaz advanced upon him with murder in her eyes. The fact that she looked like she could kill him when holding a baby somehow only made her look more dangerous.  
"I COULD arrange for the former, you little green PUKE." She growled, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and sneering into his face. "Luckily for you I have more use for you alive than dead. But I CAN change my mind about that at any time no matter how important you think you are, so fair warning, Irken. And what, did your dumb asses think I was fixing your ship and saving your lives this whole time, just because I liked you? Fuck you. You owe me and now it's time to pay up. I hope you fuckers enjoyed your childhoods because now I'm here to whip you little bitches into shape and put you to WORK. You two are vital to my Master Plan and you're just gonna have to get used to it, because unless you plan to take the pussy way out and commit suicide, you're mine now. So pick up your jaws before a bug flies in, and get ready to shit yourselves when you see what I've done with the ship."  
They didn't literally shit themselves, but their jaws dropped again when Gaz finally allowed them to see the ship in her private underground lab. She'd pretty much completely overhauled the craft, making it a Trio-Ship just to start things off. She had also made everything that was dented all shiny and smooth, replacing many of the parts with entirely new bits. It was now a much roomier ship, big enough to have force to it's frame, but still just small enough to be stealthy as well. She had added two stealth laser-cannons to each portion of the trio, a total of six, and had upgraded the defense system to boot.  
Dib openly whistled, impressed by the work. Zim glared at him and crossed his arms. His human boyfriend eventually nudged him when he refused to speak at first, and the alien had to begrudgingly admit, "Okay, I GUESS it looks better than before..."  
"Shut up, Zim, I know it." Gaz snapped back at him, adding, "Now pack whatever shit you plan on bringing. We're leaving in two weeks."  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO  
The next two weeks didn't seem like much time at all to Todd or Gaz, who made out and had sex at every possible opportunity. It was a bit longer for Dib, who Gaz pawned the kids off to constantly when she wanted a moment alone with her husband. But the new uncle had to admit, although he still never wanted kids of his own, being a mentor to the little ones was pretty fun too. He did have a bias, though. He adored Debi and was glad that she was much easier to care for and please, but he personally prefered Gab and his personality, how he was constantly trying to get into things, curious little tyke that he was. And the fact that he was a handsome shade of green didn't hurt either.  
But that day finally did come, the day that Gaz had chosen as the date of their departure, and they stood with the ship completely stocked, ready, except for one thing.  
Gaz had stopped before she boarded, and Todd stood opposite of her. Gaz was carrying Gab, and Todd had Debi in his arms. They gazed at one another for a long time, then leaned in and hugged one another, as a whole family, for the last time.  
Naturally they found themselves reluctant to let go. Todd finally hesitated to ask, just before Gaz had considered turning away, "Do you think... Will you ever be able to come back someday at all...?"  
Gaz stiffened a bit in his arms. She knew she might be able to contact him once in a great while, but eventually she would have to immerse herself in a world where that would be too dangerous to do for a long time. And as for coming back, it was impossible...  
Well, it was -probably- impossible, unless...  
Gaz suddenly grabbed Todd just as he was pulling back, and hugged him to her tighter than ever. "Listen, Todd. My love... Listen. I -might- be able to come back, someday, but it won't be soon... You'll need to hold on to life with all your might, and -maybe-, if you live a long and full enough life, I'll be able to juggle some things around and get my chores on Irk done in time to get back here, before the Cosmic Fire Witch comes to end me in all her glory. But you need to live to be old as fuck, you got that Casil? Old as FUCK."  
"Old as fuck. You got it, babe." He agreed, grinning even though his eyes were overflowing with tears. Gaz reached in and let them fall onto her hand, then brought the salty waters to her tongue. His life and his love for her was in those tears. They would have to get her by until she could quench her thirst for him once more.  
Still though. Just one more kiss...  
They'd never bound each other before, but they both knew there was a vow in that kiss, a vow that applied to both of them. Live. Live without me. Live well, for me, and I will do the same for you...  
Todd ruffled his daughter-son Gab's green head one last time before Gaz took him with her, to the world they belonged to. "You're gonna go far, kid..." Was his father's last words to him.  
Debi began to whine and then bubbled into a cry as Gaz placed one last kiss on her forehead and whispered, "I leave you this world, little one. I made it just for you. Play to your heart's content..."  
Finally, Gaz took a step back from her husband and daughter. Then another, and another. Just as her eyes began to sting, she at last tore herself away from them, turned and fled into the ship. It was the first time she'd ever fled in her life.  
Dib and Zim gave her plenty of room when she entered the ship, and neither of them protested when she handed Gab off to Dib wordlessly, and then headed to the console of the ship, starting it and typing in the instructions. Then she watched, unblinking, out of the front window, as her husband put up his hand and waved to her.  
She watched him as he got smaller and smaller as the ship ascended, and she kept watching him even when he got too small for normal humans to see. She watched until they'd left the atmosphere completely, she watched until the Earth was just another blue marble in the infinitely dark sky.  
And Dib watched her, worried for his sister, and saddened himself by her plight. It suddenly hit him, how much she'd ever done for him and everyone else, how much she'd sacrificed.  
She'd given up her true love, to save her people... Both of her peoples.  
Who wouldn't be honored to serve someone like that?  
"Dib." She suddenly sniffed thickly, refusing to look back at him. But he could see in the reflection of her on the screen, there was a bit of shine to her eyes, almost like tears... "Take the baby and Zim and go to your room. Leave me alone for a while..." She commanded quietly.  
He nodded and obeyed her, dragging Zim off despite the alien's quiet and reluctant protests about being bossed around. But Zim was glad he had obeyed after all when the door closed behind them and they began to hear strange, heavy sobbing, which soon became monstrous howls of pain.  
The multiverse was so very big, and full of so many things. But right now, Gaz felt only the emptiness.  
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO


End file.
